Studies of some lamellar inorganic host compounds and their organic intercalates

For many years organic conducting polymers have been used for electronic and photonic applications. Although there are many advantages of using these sorts of polymers, their poor environmental stability is still an issue that needs further investigation. Intercalation of organic polymer into the interlayer space of inorganic host materials is an effective way of producing well organised nanocomposites with properties that can be used for various industrial applications, including the production of electronic devices which are environmentally more stable. The preparation of a number of luminescent semiconducting nanocomposites of manganese phosphorus trisulphide (MnPS3), cadmium phosphorus trisulphide (CdPS3) and vanadyl phosphate (VOP04) containing the organic polymer poly(phenylene vinylene ) (PPV) by intercalation is herein described along with the characterisation by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), infrared (IR) and raman spectroscopy, and X ray diffraction (XRD). In addition to this we used scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to monitor the physical changes in crystallinity of the host materials. An average increase of 5.05 A in the interlayer distance was observed through XRD, a strong indicator of intercalation of the polymer. It was also found that the environmental stability of the composites was enhanced in comparison with PPV alone by doing fluorescence analysis. Moreover, electrical conductivity studies showed that the composites presented higher conductivity relative to the constituent inorganic hosts.