Electrical conductivity, optical property and ammonia sensing studies on HCl Doped Au@polyaniline nanocomposites

This paper reports the synthesis of HCl-doped Au@polyaniline (Pani) nanocomposite fibers by the in situ oxidative polymerization of aniline in the presence of gold nanoparticles. Thus prepared nanocomposite fibers were characterized by SEM, TEM, XRD, Raman spectroscopy, XPS, UV-visible diffused reflectance spectroscopy, TGA, and DSC. The Au@Pani nanocomposite fibers showed superior DC electrical conductivity to HCl-doped Pani, which might be due to the increased mobility of the charge carriers after the incorporation of gold nanoparticle in Pani. Au@Pani also exhibited a better ammonia sensing and recovery response than Pani, which might be due to the increase in the surface area of Pani after the incorporation of gold nanoparticles.