Spectroscopic, optical and thermal characterization of polyvinyl chloride-based plasma-functionalized MWCNTs composite thin films

In this work, homogeneous PVC/MWCNT nano-composite films with different concentrations of MWCNTs were prepared. The MWCNTs were treated with plasma to improve their compatibility in the PVC matrix. The prepared films are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, UV–visible spectroscopy (UV–Vis.) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The XRD, XPS, FTIR and Raman results suggest that the plasma-functionalized MWCNTs are well dispersed and interacted with the PVC. XPS results show that the stoichiometric contents of C and O groups relatively increased with the increasing percentage of MWCNTs in the nano-composite, meanwhile, Cl group decreased. The optical band gap $E_g$ of PVC–MWCNTs decreases with the increasing MWCNTs percentage in the nano-composite. Increasing the percentage of MWCNTs in the PVC nano-composite improves thermal stability, dielectric constant and AC conductivity.