Effect of zirconium oxide nanoparticles on structure, dielectric, and optical properties of PVDF/zirconia-based nanocomposites

In this work, the structure, dielectric and optical properties of PVDF/zirconia-based polymer nanocomposites were investigated. The morphology and structure of the nanocomposites were analyzed by XRD, SEM, FT-IR, UV and EDS analyses. It was determined that the forbidden gap for the PVDF/1%ZrO2-based nanocomposite is 4.7eV, for PVDF/5%ZrO2-4.5eV, and for PVDF/10%ZrO2-4.2eV. It is shown that the dielectric permittivity of the nanocomposites increases sharply up to 3% of ZrO2 nanoparticles in the polymer and then decreases slightly with an increase in the concentration of nanoparticles. An increase in the permittivity indicates an increase in polarization processes in nanocomposites at a 3% conentration of ZrO2 nanoparticles in the PVDF matrix. It has been established that the dielectric loss tangent at low frequencies starts to decrease, and at high frequencies, it increases. The increase in the dielectric loss tangent at high frequencies is explained by an increase in relaxation processes and energy dissipation in these systems.