Hydrothermal synthesis and characterization of poly(paraphenylenediamine)/Nb2O5 core–shell composite

Poly(paraphenylenediamine)/niobium oxide core–shell composite microspheres have been hydrothermally synthesized using the niobium oxide Nb2O5 as inorganic precursor and paraphenylendiamine as a structure-directing agent. Such techniques as X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), thermal analysis (TG-DTA), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) have been used to characterize the structure, the morphology and the composition of the material. It was found that this product was composed by Nb2O5 nanoparticles encapsulated into the organic shell microspheres with diameters of 2–4 μm.