Augmentation of Thermo-physical Properties of Porous Polymer Composite Film by Sonication

Abstract

Porous Polymer Composite Films (PPCF) have drawn extensive attention in recent years due to their unique and diversified applications in various fields such as photonics, gas separation/sensing, catalysis, energy storage, biomedical and tissue engineering [1-3]. In particular, porous polymer composite film consisting carbonaceous filler such as activated carbon, graphene and carbon nanotube have enormous utilities due to their thermo-chemical stability, superior chemical resistance and excellent thermal/electrical conductivity [4-7]. Various fabrication techniques such as phase separation, direct foaming, emulsion templating, polymer foam replication, immersion precipitation, vortex method, dip coating and solidification processing have been developed for porous polymer film [8-10]. "Breath figures" is another well-known method to fabricate porous polymer film by condensation of water vapour on the surface of organic polymer solvent solution [11]. Usually, immersion precipitation method used for preparing organic porous polymer membrane. However, during the fabrication process, these methods required precise control over the processing environment. Sometimes these methods are not economically suitable [12]. Teng et al. [8] fabricated porous polymer composite films by use of chloroform solution of poly (3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and (6,6)-phenyl-C61-butyricacid-methyl-ester (PCBM) via the freeze-drying method to study its wettability and adhesion behavior. Kuo et al. [13] synthesized porous polystyrene/ poly (vinyl pyrrolidone) (PS/PVP) films, via phase separation in a dip-coating process, for anti reflection applications. Morita et al. [14] fabricated a porous composite membrane by the combination of polypyrrole (PPy) powder with a porous polypropylene film, which could be used to control ionic permeability. The desired property of any porous polymer composite film or any composite