Synthesis and Characterization of Palladium Nanoparticle/Polypyrrole Composites

In this work, a simple non-template one-step method for the synthesis of 2.0-2.5 nm palladium nanoparticles encapsulated into a polypyrrole shell via direct redox reaction between palladium(II) acetate and pyrrole in acetonitrile medium is described. Palladium nanoparticles are found to be able to self-organize into spherical Pd/PPy composites. The size of the Pd/PPy composite particles and Pd content in the composite depend strongly on the concentration of the palladium salt component. The combination of elemental CHNS and thermogravimetric (TGA) analysis was used to determine a high (similar to 40 wt %) content of palladium, which is in a good agreement with EDX data. The process of Pd/PPy composite formation was studied with the use of UV-vis spectroscopy and AFM spectroscopy. Properties of the obtained material were characterized by means of FTIR, XPS, XRD, SEM, and TEM techniques.