HYDROTHERMALLY GROWN ZnO/rGO AND ZnO/PANI NANOHYBRIDS: COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THEIR ELECTRICAL CONDUCTANCE

Abstract

The unique properties of Zinc Oxide, Graphene and their nanocomposite have enabled them to fabricate manyoptoelectronic devices which offer advantages like light weight, good stability and optical transparency. Conductingpolymer/graphene hybrids are also a major class of composite materials for the fabrication of donor/acceptor basedelectronic devices. In this paper we report the synthesis, characterization and conductivity measurements in ZnO/rGOand ZnO/PANI binary nanohybrids. ZnO nanotops are synthesized by low temperature hydrothermal method, grapheneoxide (GO) by modified Hummer’s Method, reduced graphene oxide (rGO) by hydrothermal in situ reduction techniqueand PANI from aniline by chemical polyoxidation reaction. ZnO/rGO nanohybrid is prepared by hydrothermaltreatment of ZnO and GO, whereas ZnO/PANI by in-situ oxidative polymerization of aniline in presence of ZnO. Allthe materials were characterized using SEM, TEM, XRD, UV-Vis, IR&TGA. The as-synthesized samples were dispersedin IPA, coated on quartz glass using spin-coating technique, and dark conductivity measurements were done.