Impact of vanadium-, sulfur-, and dysprosium-doped zinc oxide nanoparticles on various properties of PVDF/functionalized-PMMA blend nanocomposites: Structural, optical, and morphological studies

The polymeric blend was fabricated with crystalline poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF)/amorphous functionalized-poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) in 70/30 w/w ratio by chemical mixing method. Functionalization of PMMA was achieved with 2-amino-5-nitrobenzoic acid. The prepared polymer blend was used as a matrix to synthesize nanocomposites with undoped/doped zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles. Doping in ZnO was achieved with vanadium, sulfur, and dysprosium elements as a dopant. The structural, optical, electronic, and morphological properties of undoped/doped nanosized ZnO and blended nanocomposites were accessed through sophisticated analytical techniques, that is, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis), UV-vis-diffuse reflectance spectra, nuclear magnetic resonance, fluorescence spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. The FTIR band at 1165-1176cm(-1) in functionalized-PMMA indicate the formation of aliphatic C-N bond along with aromatic H-1 chemical shift () at 7.134, 7.829 and 8.210ppm confirm the successfully functionalization of PMMA. The prominent XRD peak at 2=20.8 degrees in nanocomposites shown improvement in -phase of PVDF. The results show that Dy doped ZnO nanoparticles create remarkable effect on various properties of nanocomposites. (c) 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019, 136, 47116.