Morphologically different silver particles decorated- conductive poly(o-anisidine)/wool fabric composites and investigation of catalytic activity in reduction of methylene blue

Abstract

Abstract Wool fabrics were coated with one of the most conductive polyaniline derivatives of poly(o-anisidine) (POA), by in situ polymerization of o-anisidine with (NH4)2S2O8 oxidant in 1.0 M HCl. On the as-prepared POA/wool composites, noble Ag particles were deposited in three steps: First, conductive POA was converted to its base form by dedoping the POA/Wool with NH4OH solution, then redoped with various acid solutions such as citric acid, ascorbic acid and acetic acid and finally dipped into AgNO3 solution. Relatively the lowest volume resistivity of the composites (∼106 Ω cm) was obtained when citric acid and 0.05 M AgNO3 solution were used. Depending on the selected redoping acids, the Ag particles on composite surfaces took changing morphologies ranging from globules, flower-like structures to tightly wound yarn-balls, which were monitored with SEM. Morphologically different Ag particles decorated composites were used as simple catalysts for the reduction of methylene blue (MB) to leuco methylene blue (LMB) in presence of excess NaBH4. The catalytic performance of the silver particles-decorated composites prepared at different initial concentrations of AgNO3 was also investigated. The highest catalytic activity (90%) was obtained at 30min for citric acid redoped composite at the lowest AgNO3 concentration (0.05 M).