Structural and Morphological Study of PS-ZnO Nanocomposite Membrane Lokesh Kumar Jangir,* 1 Yogita Kumari, 1 Anil Kumar, 2 Manoj Kumar, 1 Kamlendra Awasthi* 1 Summary: Zinc Oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles were synthesized by chemical precipitation method. Particle size as calculated from X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) were found to be 18  2 nm. Polystyrene (PS)-ZnO nanocomposite membrane of thickness 30 mm were prepared by solution cast method with varied content of ZnO nanoparticles. (Structural behavior of nanocomposites was investigated by XRD and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). Morphological behavior of the composites were examined by Optical Microscopy. Keywords: nano-composite; polystyrene; zinc oxide Introduction Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a direct wide band gap semiconductor material and is used for traditional inorganic UV-absorbing materi- als and cosmetics as well as for optoelectronic devices such as solar cells and light emitting diodes. [1] Optoelectronic properties of ZnO nanoparticles mainly depends on particle size, dimensionality and band gap [2–4] whereas polymers are flexible lightweight materials and can be produced at a low cost. Polymers are also known to allow easy processing and can be shaped into thin films by various techniques such as dip-coating and spin-coating while self-standing mem- branes can be prepared by solution-cast technique. Polymers are widely used in the optoelectronics industry and are playing important roles in various applications. The drawbacks of using inorganic nano- structured materials can be overcome by embedding relatively small content of inorganic nanoparticles into a polymer matrix. The organic–inorganic polymer nano-composites thus possess unique mechanical, thermal and optical features, and can apply in various areas. [5–8] There are several methods for attaching polymer chains onto nanoparticle surfaces, including chemisorption, [9] covalent attachment of end functionalized polymers to a reactive surface (“grafting to”), [10] and in situ monomer polymerization with monomer growth of polymer chains from immobilized initiators (“grafting from”). [11] Properties of polymers can be modified because of the polymer/ surfactant interaction, may provide by high surface reactivity of ZnO nanostructures with certain polymer. The chemical inter- action of ZnO quantum dots (QDs) with poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) has already been reported that PVA/ZnO nanofibers have an emission of intense white-light in between ultraviolet to visible region. [12] The interaction between ZnO and polymer can also provide several new radiative recombination mechanisms that may be utilized for broadband light emission or wavelength tuneable emission. Since these mechanisms are influenced by several factors such as the individual properties not only organic and inorganic components 1 Department of Physics, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur 302017, India E-mail: lokesh7785@gmail.com, kamlendra.awasthi@gmail.com 2 Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineer- ing, Malaviya National Institute of Technology, Jaipur 302017, India Macromol. Symp. 2015, 357, 218–222 DOI: 10.1002/masy.201500020 218 | ß 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim wileyonlinelibrary.com