Graphene Oxide and Reduced Graphene Oxide as Nanofillers …
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Fig. 6 C 1s XPS spectra of a PPy–Cl, b PPy–GO, c PEDOT–PSS, and d PEDOT–GO. The figure
is adapted with permission from Elsevier [110]
and in 0.1 M NaPSS (PEDOT–PSS). They applied XPS to verify the embedding of
GO into the polymers. The C 1s core-level spectra of the nanocomposite films and
their respective reference films are depicted in Fig. 6. An additional strong peak is
observed in XPS spectra of PPy–GO and PEDOT–GO compared with that of PPy–Cl
and PEDOT–PSS, which is a clear evidence to the successful incorporation of GO
into the polymer films.
3.3 Evaluation of Membrane Surface Charge
(a) Zeta Potential Analysis
The surface charge of the nanocomposite membranes is studied using zeta potential
analysis. The zeta potential of the membrane surface is determined using an electrokinetic analyzer [102, 108]. Bano et al. [108] indicated that the incorporation of
GO into the PA polymer induces a negative charge on the surface of the nanocomposite membranes (Fig. 7). This was justified using zeta potential investigation. The