Synthesis and Characterization of Polymer Grafted Carbon Nano Particles

Abstract

The present thesis entitled “Synthesis and Characterization of Polymer Grafted Carbon Nano Particles” deals with the synthesis and characterization of controlled and covalently grafted nanostructured carbon material-g-polyaniline nano composites. A thorough analysis of their structure, morphology and electrochemical properties are presented. The work is carried out at the Department of Chemistry, Presidency University, Kolkata 700073 India, under the supervision of Dr. Dhruba Prosad Chatterjee.

The thesis comprises of five chapters. Chapter 1 deals with a brief introduction of carbon nano particles; their classification, synthesis, their composites with different polymers and their application in electronics, biomedical, energy application. Due to their high surface area and porosity, carbon nano materials are capable of showing electrochemical double layer capacitance (EDLC), whereas conducting polymers like polyaniline, polythiophene and polypyrrole show pseudocapacitance. Achieving their best of synergistic effect via covalent bonding hence, improvement in electrochemical properties is the main focus of my research. Chapter 2 describes controlled polymerization of aniline on spherical carbon nano dots (CND) obtained from oxidation followed by size separation from cheap raw material like candle soot, resulting in distinguishable morphology between controlled and uncontrolled product with much improved electrochemical property of the former. Chapter 3 illustrates the synthesis of covalently attached graphene oxide-g-polyaniline nano composites having hierarchical nano structuring of one dimensional (1D) polyaniline nano cylinders over two dimensional (2D) graphene oxide surfaces along with formation of unique microflower or ‘sea urchin’ like highly porous three dimensional (3D) microstructures resulting in superior electrochemical properties than non covalent product. Chapter 4 investigates synthesis of covalently attached GO-g-PANI chiral nanocomposites seeded by oligomeric aniline attached GO sheets, which shows better electrochemical properties compared to non covalently attached composite with much inferior degree of PANI chain chirality. A summary of the research work along with the future prospects obtained from this thesis are presented in Chapter 5.