Structural and optical properties of pure PVA/PPY and cobalt chloride doped PVA/PPY films

Polyvinyl alcohol-polypyrrole (PVA/PPY) composite polymer films were prepared by chemical polymerization. Cobalt chloride CoCl 2 ·6H 2 O was used at different concentrations as doping ( x = 0.2–1.0 g). The produced films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Infrared spectroscopy (IR) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The optical properties of all produced films were studied, where the optical absorption of the prepared films decreases with increasing the x value of CoCl 2 ·6H 2 O in both VIS (500–700 nm) and UV (200–400 nm) regions. The calculated energy gaps ( E g1 and E g2 ) were found to decrease as the CoCl 2 ·6H 2 O concentration increases. While Eg 3 tended to be constant as CoCl 2 ·6H 2 O content increases.