Humidity Sensing Performance of <I>In-Situ</I> Fabricated Cu/Cu<SUB>2</SUB>O/Cu<SUB>2</SUB>S-Polymer Nanocomposite via Polyphenylene Sulphide Cyclisation Route

Abstract

We herein report the feasibility of novel polymer-inorganic solid state reaction route for simultaneous in situ generation of Cu2S and Cu nanostructures in polymer network. Polyphenylene Sulphide (PPS) which is engineering thermoplastic acts as chalcogen source as well as stabilizing matrix for the resultant nano products. Typical solid state reaction was accomplished by simply heating the physical admixtures of the two reactants i.e., copper acetate and PPS by varying molar ratios mainly 1:1, 1:5, 1:10, 1:15, 1:20 at the crystalline melting temperature (285 degrees C) of PPS. The synthesized products were characterized using various physicochemical characterization techniques like X-ray Diffractometry, Field emission Scanning Electron Microscopy, Transmission Electron Microscopy, UV-Visible spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The prima facie observations suggest occurrence of nanocrystalline Cu2S in case of product obtained with equimolar ratio, whereas remaining samples show mixture of Cu and Cu2O. The TEM analysis reveals nanoscale polydispersity (5-60 nm) and prevalence of mainly spherical morphological features in all the cases with occasional indications of plate like and cubical morphological features depending upon the molar ratio of the reactants. The humidity sensing characterization of these nanocomposites was also performed. The resistivity response with the level of humidity (20 to 70% RH) was compared for these nanocomposites. The linear response is obtained for all the samples. The sensitivity of 1:1 molar ratio sample was found to be maximum among all the samples.