Influence of Polarization Processes on the Morphology and Photoluminescence Properties of PP/TiO₂ Polymer Nanocomposites

The paper reports of synthesis and investigation of polymeric nanocomposites based on isotactic polypropylene and titanium dioxide nanoparticles PP+TiO₂ (PPT). The structure of the PPT nanocomposites was studied by scanning electron and atomic force microscopy. There was also studied the influence of the polarization process by corona discharge on the structure and photoluminescence properties of PPT nanocomposites. It was found that intensity of the photoluminescence after the polarization increases, and this depends on the concentration of titan dioxide nanoparticles in the polymer matrix. It was shown that rms roughness for non-polarized sample compositions is 60-100 nm, whereas for polarized samples after the corona discharge polarization, makes 20-40 nm, i.e. there takes place grinding of the structural elements. It is supposed that, in the composite there forms sufficiently high internal local field, due to the boundary charges, so under the influence of this field there were excited additional luminescent centers, and as a result, after the polarization there was observed the increase of luminescence intensity.