Electrical transport, optical and thermal properties of polyaniline-pumice composites

In this study, electrical conductivity, photoconductivity, absorbance and thermal properties of polyaniline (PANI) and polyaniline-pumice composites were investigated. Temperature dependent conductivity and photoconductivity measurements were carried out in the temperature range of 80-400K. The measurements revealed that the dominant conduction mechanisms in polyaniline and 15% pumice doped composite were hopping conduction. The low activation energies calculated for 36% pumice doped composite indicated that this sample has highly defective and degenerate structure due to the high pumice content. Polyaniline and pumice doped composites showed semiconductor behavior with the exponential variation of inverse temperature dependence of electrical conductivity. Photoconductivities of the PANI and PANI-pumice composites under various illumination intensities were studied and it was found for all samples that the conductivity increased with increasing temperature and light intensity, but decreased with increasing pumice content in the structure. Absorbance spectrum has been determined in the wavelength range of 300-700 nm and it was found that the band gap values decreased as the pumice content was increased. Thermogravimetric analysis have shown for all samples that the mass loss has started above around 300 K due to the loss of moisture from the structures. As a result of this work, it was found that polyaniline and polyaniline-pumice composites had low resistivity and high band gaps and could be used as a window layer semiconductor in heterojunction solar cell applications. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.