Fabrication and characterization of polyaniline, polyaniline/MgO(30%) and polyaniline/MgO(40%) nanocomposites for their employment in LPG sensing at room temperature

Nanostructured polyaniline (PANI), PANI/MgO(30%) and PANI/MgO(40%) nanocomposites were successfully synthesized. Several characterization methods were employed to probe the optical, morphological, elemental and structural properties of PANI and PANI/MgO nanocomposites such as Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis and X-ray diffraction (XRD). SEM images of PANI and PANI/MgO nanocomposites showed the porosity of the synthesized materials. The XRD patterns of PANI, PANI/MgO(30%) and PANI/MgO(40%) were scrutinized to compute their crystallite sizes which were found to be 2 nm, 35 nm and 43 nm respectively. LPG sensing investigations were also performed at room temperature for the synthesized materials and their response and recovery times were calculated. PANI/MgO(40%) nanocomposites reflected the lower response and recovery times in comparison to PANI and PANI/MgO(30%).