Study of the properties of nanocomposite cobalt-containing IR-pyrolyzed polyacrylonitrile films

Abstract

Nanocomposite films of Co-containing polyacrylonitrile (PAN) films were manufactured using the method of pyrolysis under incoherent IR-radiation and were studied using AFM, XPS, and XRD atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) methods. The XPS method was used to determine the elemental composition and the chemical and electron states of the elements of the film material. The XRD method showed that the obtained materials contained crystalline inclusions of CoO, Co3O4, and CoO(OH) in an organic matrix of PAN. The AFM method revealed that the film surfaces have high values of the mean square roughness of Rq = 10.4–53.1 nm, which linearly depend on the concentration of the modifying additive in the film material. It was established that the films of Co-containing PAN have semiconducting properties and are sensitive to NO2, Cl2, and CO.