Preparation, characterization and electrical study of gum Arabic/ZnO nanocomposites

Abstract

Gum Arabic (GA)-mediated chemical synthesis was carried out for obtaining ZnO nanoparticles (ZnONPs) (particle size of ZnO ≈ 40 nm) which, in turn, was used for preparing ZnO-biopolymer nanocomposites. The dielectric study of this synthesized products is reported in this paper. The synthesized products were characterized by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared, and transmission electron microscopy for their structure and morphology study. The frequency dependence of dielectric constant and dielectric loss of these GA-ZnO nanocomposites were analysed in the frequency range of 100 Hz-5 kHz. In addition, the dielectric property of these nanocomposites (0-15 wt% filler concentration) was analysed with respect to frequency in the temperature range 30-80C. A high dielectric constant of 275 is achieved for the sample with 10 wt% of ZnO filler. The dielectric property of GA-ZnO nanocomposites is attributed to the interfacial and orientation polarization.