ATO in the PVDF matrix, act as additional nucleating centers [4], since more nucleation sites greatly reduced ... Canada: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken,.
Electronic supporting information Significantly enhanced electroactive β phase crystallization and UV-shielding properties in PVDF nanocomposites flexible films through loading of ATO nanoparticles: synthesis and formation mechanism Ayman S ELmezayyen1,2, Fikry M Reicha2, Ibrahim M El-Sherbiny3, Jianming Zheng1 and Chunye Xu1 1 Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, CAS Key Laboratory of Soft Matter Chemistry, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, P. R. China. 2 Biological Advanced Materials, Physics Department, Faculty of Science, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt. 3 Zewail City of Science and Technology, Center for Materials Science, Giza, Egypt.
Most of the investigations have reported the effect of nanofillers on spherulite growth rates the polymeric matrices and filler/matrix interactions relative to the neat polymer. The morphology of the neat PVDF film generated at the air/solution interface is shown in SEM Figure. The surface is full of spherulites of PVDF. The formation of the spherulites in Neat PVDF may be assigned to the temperature fluctuation [1-3]. While loading ATO in the PVDF matrix, act as additional nucleating centers [4], since more nucleation sites greatly reduced the grain size and the spherulite rapidly impinged to each other [5]
Fig.SI1 Schematic illustration for the dispersion of ATO nanoparticle within the PVDF matrix.
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Surface roughness is becoming of increasing importance for applications in many fields, because the morphology of the surface of solid plays an important role for many physical and chemical properties. So, by considering your recommendation, the surface roughness profiles for all samples have been studied as shown in Fig.SI1 and consequently, we studied the optical measurement in different areas of the samples as shown in Fig.SI2. It seems that roughness have a little bit effect on the transmittance of the PVDF and ATO/PVDF nanocomposites.
Fig.SI2 Surface roughness profiles of PVDF and ATO/PVDF nanocomposites
The UV–Vis spectra obtained for the studied films at four different areas are shown in Fig.SI4. It was found that the effect of ATO nanofiller on the UV–Vis transmittance behavior of PVDF at four different areas of the samples are the same, where the increasing the ATO nanoparticles in the PVDF matrix promotes a gradually decrease transmittance.
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Fig.SI3 UV–vis transmittance spectra at four different areas of PVDF and ATO/PVDF nanocomposites
Fig.SI4 the behavior of UV–vis transmittance of PVDF and ATO/PVDF nanocomposites at four different areas. 3
Band shift 871 cm-1 shift
3029 cm-1 shift
)ATO/PVDF
871
3029.5
(0.025)ATO/PVDF
879
3021
(0.05 )ATO/PVDF
874.6
3021.4
(0.1 )ATO/PVDF
873.6
3021.7
(0.15 )ATO/PVDF
872.6
3021.9
(0.2 )ATO/PVDF
872.6
3021.1
samples (0.0
Table SI1. Band shift of 871 and 3029 cm-1 occurred by loading ATO in PVDF matrix. samples (0.0
UV at 400 nm
UV- VIS. Degree of transparency % (UV-B light) UV-c light) at Vis. at 650 nm at 300 nm 220 nm
)ATO/PVDF
55
41.6
25.34
74.5
(0.025)ATO/PVDF
20
20
3.48
40.5
(0.05 )ATO/PVDF
13
13
0.47
36.
(0.1 )ATO/PVDF
5.11
4.87
0.023
23.2
(0.15 )ATO/PVDF
4.4
4.39
0.017
20.4
(0.2 )ATO/PVDF
1.46
1.46
0.00
12
Table SI2. UV-Vis transparency % of neat PVDF and ATO/PVF nanocomposites.
References [1] E. Piorkowska GCR. Handbook of polymer crystallization. Canada: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey; 2013. [2] Pochan VKaDJ. Unusual Crystallization Behavior of Organoclay Reinforced Poly(L-lactic acid) Nanocomposites. Macromolecules 37 (2004) 6480-6491. [3] B. Dutta, E. Kar, N. Bose S. Mukherjee, Significant enhancement of the electroactive bphase of PVDF by incorporating hydrothermally synthesized copper oxide nanoparticles, RSC Adv., 5 (2015) 105422-105434. [4] Y. Wang, J. Li, Y. Deng, Enhanced ferroelectricity and energy storage in poly(vinylidene fluoride)–clay nanocomposite films via nanofiller surface charge modulation, RSC Adv., 5 (2015) 85884–85888. [5] M. Sharma, G. Madras, S. Bose, Contrasting Effects of Graphene Oxide and Poly(ethylenimine) on the Polymorphism in Poly(vinylidene fluoride), Cryst. Growth Des. (15) 2015 3345-3355. 4
