<i>In situ </i>preparation of polyaniline/silica composites and study of their adsorption characteristics

Abstract

Polyaniline/silica, poly-<i>o</i>-toluidine/silica and poly-2-chloroaniline/silica composites have been prepared under a variety of synthetic conditions by polymerizing the respective monomers in the presence of silica prepared <i>in situ </i>from an aqueous sodium silicate solution. The composites, thus synthesized, have been characterized by a wide range of experimental techniques including elemental analysis for silica content, density, infrared spectroscopy and sedimentometry for particle size determination. When used as column material in the IGC experiments, synthesized composites have been found to be capable of separating the alkanes (C₅-C₉) from their mixture. The composites have been further examined for their surface free energy and specific surface area. The observed <b>BET</b> surface area of the composites are found to be nearly ten times higher than that of the bulk polymer.