Albedo parameters and effective atomic numbers of PEDOT/Carbon black composites

Highlights: • Albedo parameters of the PEDOT/carbon black (C) composites is determined by the gamma ray spectrometry. • Effective atomic numbers of the samples are determined. • APS is the oxidant; PSSA, p-toluenesulfonic acid, p-TSA and camphor sulfonic acid are primary dopants and EG or DMSO secondary dopants. • The defective sites are determined by Raman spectroscopy. • p-TSA dopant decreases the reflective power of the PEDOT surface. In this work, albedo parameters and effective atomic numbers of the PEDOT/carbon black (C) composites were determined by the gamma ray spectrometry. EDOT monomers were polymerized on carbon black (Cabot, Vulcan XC 72R) at room temperature. Ammonium persulphate (APS) was used as the oxidant. The primary dopants including polystyrene sulfonic acid (PSSA), p-toluenesulfonic acid (p-TSA) and camphor sulfonic acid (CSA) were added with the secondary ethylene glycol (EG) or DMSO dopants. Synthesized composites were physically characterized by using Raman spectroscopy in order to determine the defective sites. Albedo parameters and effective atomic numbers of PEDOT/C composites were carried out by using a HPGe detector and 59.54 keV gamma-rays emitted from a radioactive source of ²⁴¹Am (59.54 keV). Compton and coherent peaks were determined at XRF spectra. It is observed that albedo parameters of the composites appear to be enhanced significantly with the CSA dopant. The impact of p-TSA dopant decreased the reflective power of the PEDOT surface. The S2 composite with low effective atomic number (Zeff.exp.=5.68) is more scatterer than the S4 composite with high effective atomic number (Zeff.exp.=6.78). It can be said that the effective atomic number results obtained by scattering experiments are more reliable than WinXCOM since the material components and geometric modeling technology for absorption are generally assumed to be uniform distribution, and parameters related to sample properties are not taken into account.