Impact of vanadium-, sulfur-, and dysprosium-doped zinc oxide nanoparticles on various properties of PVDF/functionalized-PMMA blend nanocomposites: Structural,optical, and morphological studies

The polymeric blend was fabricated with crystalline poly(vinylidene fluoride) (PVDF)/amorphous functionalized-poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) in 70/30 w/w ratio by chemical mixing method. Functionalization of PMMA was achieved with 2-amino-5-nitrobenzoic acid. The prepared polymer blend was used as a matrix to synthesize nanocomposites with undoped/doped zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles. Doping in ZnO was achieved with vanadium, sulfur, and dysprosium elements as a dopant. The structural, optical, electronic, and morphological properties of undoped/doped nanosized ZnO and blended nanocomposites were accessed through sophisticated analytical techniques, that is, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis), UV–vis–diffuse reflectance spectra, nuclear magnetic resonance, fluorescence spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. The FTIR band at 1165–1176 cm⁻¹ in functionalized-PMMA indicate the formation of aliphatic C-N bond along with aromatic ¹H chemical shift (δ) at 7.134, 7.829 and 8.210 ppm confirm the successfully functionalization of PMMA. The prominent XRD peak at 2θ = 20.8° in nanocomposites shown improvement in β-phase of PVDF. The results show that Dy doped ZnO nanoparticles create remarkable effect on various properties of nanocomposites. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019 , 136, 47116.