Role of gadolinium(III) complex in improving thermal stability of polythiophene composite

This paper involves the preparation of polythiophene (PTP) and its composite by the oxidative polymerisation method by using ferric chloride as an oxidant and thiophene monomer. The gadolinium(III) complex obtained by the refluxing technique was used as dopant in the PTP matrix. On the basis of the spectroscopic characterisation, seven-coordinate geometry is proposed for the complex. Conductance measurement confirms the non-selectrolyte nature of complex. The PTP and its composite were subjected to FTIR, X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscope techniques. The powder X-ray diffraction pattern showed the high crystalline nature of the complex which in turn developed a good degree of crystallinity in the PTP composite. The average particle size was calculated as 4.655 Å and 3.737 Å for the dopant and PTP composite, respectively, by using Debye Scherrer’s equation. Thermal analysis was performed by thermogravimetric (TG) analysis, differential thermal analysis (DTA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) techniques. The TG, DTA and DSC results were well-correlated. The thermal analysis revealed the high thermal stability of the dopant which in turn improved the thermal stability of the PTP composite, revealing the potential of the composite for high temperature applications.