STUDIES ON POLYACRYLAMIDE/POLYANILINE NANO FIBRCOMPOSITE HYDROGELSE

Abstract

Conducting polymer composite hydrogels have received a lot of attention from researchers worldwide. Although, a number of approaches have been reported to electropolymerize conducting polymers inside hydrogels, yet a simple procedure for chemical synthesis has not been outlined. This study attempts to address the problem and involves the chemical synthesis of polyacrylamide/polyaniline nanofibre composite hydrogels and their characterization. The main advantage is that the process is very simple and does not require specialized instruments for synthesis and can be carried out easily in any lab with an added feature of being very economic. Polyacrylamide hydrogel and polyacrylamide/polyaniline nanofibre composite hydrogels were characterized by using FTIR spectroscopy. The electroactivity of polyaniline in the composite hydrogels was shown using cyclic voltammetry. Thermal degradation studies of hydrogels were carried out using TGA and crystallinity was studied by using X-ray diffractom...