New Nanocomposites Based on Poly (o-phenylenediamine) and ZrO₂ Nanoparticles: A Study of Spectroscopic, Thermal, Optical and Electrochemical Properties

Novel nanocomposites are produced from poly(o-phenylenediamine) with different amounts of ZrO₂ using a chemical oxidation polymerisation process. The materials obtained were analysed for their structural characteristics utilising techniques such as FTIR, XPS, TGA, UV–Vis XRD and SEM, and these results provided confirmation of the creation of nanocomposites. This paper represents an effective means of defining the optical behaviour of synthesised products obtained by varying the mass of ZrO₂ throughout polymerization, The results reveal that the lowest evaluation of the optical bandgap is 3.74 eV for PoPD@ZrO₂ (10%) compared with PoPD@ZrO₂ (5%), and pure PoPD with 3.78 and 3.80 eV, respectively. In particular, the electrochemical properties show that the nanocomposites produced are electro-active. These results are encouraging with regard to the goal of using them in the domain of research and technology linked to energy storage and conversion devices.