Polypyrrole (PPy) has been widely used as a sensing material in many studies as PPy gives out noticeable reactions towards varieties of vapours of acids, bases, alcohols, alkanes, and chemical warfare agent (CWA) simulants. However, due to dispersion and mechanical properties limitation, PPy in nanoparticles (PPy NPs) has been introduced. The combinations between PPy NPs and nanosized metal oxide have shown promising improvement in the sensitivity of a sensor due to the larger total surface area of detection. In this study, the potential of PPy NPs and polypyrrole-iron oxyhydroxide (PFFs) nanocomposite as sensing materials in detecting the CWA simulant, dimethyl methylphosphonate (DMMP), is investigated. PPy NPs and modified PFFs nanocomposite were successfully synthesised using chemical oxidative polymerisation. The formation of PPy NPs and the effect of iron-oxyhydroxide (FeOOH) on the chemical interaction, morphology, and size of PPy NPs were investigated using attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). ATR-FTIR analysis showed that the modified PFFs nanocomposite was successfully produced through the presence of a sharp –OH peak. The size of the prepared PPy NPs and PFFs nanocomposite was observed in the range of 50 to 70 nm and 110 to 160 nm, respectively, through TEM analysis. The electrochemical behaviour of PPy NPs and PFFs nanocomposite towards DMMP was investigated using cyclic voltammetry (CV) where, in the presence of DMMP, PPy NPs and PFFs nanocomposite showed 24% and 21% current signal reduction, respectively. This suggests that both PPy NPs and PFFs nanocomposite are able to discriminate an electrical signal both with and without the presence of DMMP.

中文翻译：

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聚吡咯-羟基氧化铁纳米复合材料的制备与表征

聚吡咯（PPy）在许多研究中已广泛用作传感材料，因为PPy对酸，碱，醇，烷烃和化学战剂（CWA）模拟物的各种蒸气产生了明显的反应。但是，由于分散性和机械性能的限制，已经引入了纳米颗粒中的PPy（PPy NPs）。由于较大的检测总表面积，PPy NP与纳米级金属氧化物之间的组合已显示出在传感器灵敏度方面有希望的改善。在这项研究中，研究了PPy NPs和聚吡咯-羟基氧化铁（PFFs）纳米复合材料作为检测CWA模拟物甲基膦酸二甲酯（DMMP）的传感材料的潜力。PPy NPs和修饰的PFFs纳米复合材料已使用化学氧化聚合成功合成。利用衰减全反射-傅里叶变换红外光谱（ATR-FTIR），场发射扫描电子显微镜（FESEM）研究了PPy NPs的形成以及铁羟基氧化物（FeOOH）对PPy NPs的化学相互作用，形态和尺寸的影响）和透射电子显微镜（TEM）。ATR-FTIR分析表明，改性的PFFs纳米复合材料是通过存在一个清晰的-OH峰而成功制备的。通过TEM分析，观察到所制备的PPy NPs和PFFs纳米复合物的尺寸分别在50至70nm和110至160nm的范围内。使用循环伏安法（CV）研究了PPy NPs和PFFs纳米复合材料对DMMP的电化学行为，其中在存在DMMP的情况下，PPy NPs和PFFs纳米复合材料分别显示了24％和21％的电流信号降低。