Study on the properties of polyaniline composite TiO 2 electrochromic materials

Abstract Polyaniline (PANI) composite is an effective way to improve the electrochromic properties of inorganic materials. However, there is still a lack of systematic research on the electrochromic properties of PANI composite titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) materials. In this work, TiO 2 thin films with different PANI composite contents (PANI‐TiO 2 ) were prepared by deposition method combined with hydrothermal method. The effects of different composite contents of PANI on the morphology and electrochromic properties of the samples were investigated using X‐ray diffraction (XRD), Raman, field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), high‐resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR‐TEM) and electrochemical methods. It was found that a certain amount of PANI composite could enhance the electrochromic properties of TiO 2 electrochromic materials. In this study, the 5% PANI‐TiO 2 film has the best electrochromic performance, the ion diffusion coefficient of 5% PANI‐TiO 2 composite film is 7.42 × 10 −10 cm 2 /s, the optical modulation increased by 54.2%, and the bleached and coloured switching time are 19.98 and 33.45 s, respectively, which all indicate that the appropriate amount of PANI composite can enhance the electrochromic performance of TiO 2 materials. These results show that the appropriate amount of PANI composite is indeed as an effective way to optimise the electrochromic performance of TiO 2 .