Synthesis and characterization of nanostructured materials using dispersion polymerization

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to develop simple methods to prepare novel nanostructured materials and to explore their properties. This work focuses on three nanostructures: nanoparticle, hollow nanostructure, and core-shell nanostructure. In the first part, two surface-functionalized conducting nanoparticles, polyaniline-chitosan and polypyrrole-chitosan were prepared. Chitosan was developed as the steric stabilizer to prevent the aggregation of polyaniline and polypyrrole. In the second part, a facile method was developed for the fabrication of polypyrrole-chitosan hollow nanostructures with different sizes and shapes. AgCl and AgBr were employed as templates for polymer nucleation and growth. Polymeric hollow nanospheres, hollow nanocubes and hollow plate were prepared. In the last part, a simple method was developed for the preparation of polypyrrole-chitosan hollow nanospheres with movable Ag nanoparticles inside. The formation of this novel core-shell nanostructure was a photoreduction process. Ag nanoparticle was formed by ultraviolet irradiation in the interior of the polypyrrole-chitosan hollow nanosphere.