Vol.:(0123456789) 1 3 Journal of Inorganic and Organometallic Polymers and Materials https://doi.org/10.1007/s10904-020-01656-w Design of Hollow Nanosphere Structured Polypyrrole/Sn and SnO 2 Nanoparticles by COP Approach for Enhanced Electron Transport Behavior G. Sowmiya 1  · G. Velraj 2 Received: 29 April 2020 / Accepted: 1 July 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract In this report, the Polypyrrole, PPy/Sn and PPy/SnO 2 nanocomposites have been prepared through a facile chemical oxidation polymerization (COP) techniques. The resulting nanocomposites were characterized by Fourier transform-infrared spectros- copy (FT-IR), X-ray difraction (XRD) and UV–Visible spectroscopy (UV–Vis). FTIR analysis confrms the presence of nano tin and SnO 2 particles in the molecular structure. XRD patterns revealed that the sample is crystallite nature with tetragonal structure. The average crystallite size for the PPy/SnO 2 and PPy/Sn nanocomposites are 27 and 56 nm. In addition to this, the surface morphologies and elemental compositions were investigated by feld emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) and Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). We obtained the aggregate, hollow nanosphere for PPy/Sn nanocomposites. The results indicate that the hollow sphere of the nanocomposites efectively enhances the electrical conductivity. Keywords COP approach · Hollow nanosphere · Polymer matrix · Electron transfer · AC electrical conductivity 1 Introduction Recent years, the synthesis of electrically conducting poly- mers have been focused on the various polymers such as polypyrrole, polyaniline, polyacetylene and polythiophene as well as they initiate a huge range of applications as syn- thetic metals, as they can alternate for semiconductors and conductors in an enormous variety of electronic and elec- tric devices [1–4]. Amongst plenty of conducting polymers (CPs), polypyrrole (PPy) is one of the most broadly investi- gated owing to its unique transport properties, facile synthe- sis, higher conductivity, good environmental and electrical stability [5]. Moreover PPy ofers tremendous technologi- cal potential applications such as battery electrodes [6], biological sensors [7], corrosion protection [8], microwave shielding [9, 10] and sensors [11]. It can be easily produced under chemical and electrochemical conditions in special organic solvents and within aqueous solutions. Notably, the chemical synthetic procedures are typically focused on the formation of nanostructured polypyrrole materials [12–18]. A new class of materials emerged, known as composites, prepared by mixing properly with organic and inorganic base materials in appropriate form. The composite materi- als have individual properties, however as seen in some of the cases, they can also have few desirable properties from both the parent organic and inorganic class of materials. As a consequence, there are growing interests in combining both organic and inorganic materials for applications in electron- ics, optics, magnetism and etc. [19–21]. Nevertheless, metal- lic nanoparticles have been extensively deliberate because of their exacting importance in many applications. Moreover the metal oxide nano materials exhibit a high surface area to volume ratio and are thus expected to modify the optical and electrical properties of conducting polymers [22, 23]. Some eforts have been over with regard to the synthesis of conductive PPy or PANI with metal oxide nanocomposites such as MnO 2 , TiO 2 , NiO, ZnO, and Fe 3 O 4 as electrode or hybrid materials with high capacitance and suitable perfor- mance for supercapacitor applications [24–30]. Recently, the large variety of metal nanoparticles, diverse methods for the * G. Velraj gvelraj@yahoo.co.uk 1 Department of Physics, Periyar University, Salem 636 011, Tamilnadu, India 2 Department of Physics, Anna University, Chennai 600 025, Tamilnadu, India