Supplementary Material

Structural features, properties and relaxations of PMMA-ZnO nanocomposite

Marta Dai Prèa, Alessandro Martucci a1, Darren J. Martinb, Sandra Lavinac, Vito Di Notoc aDipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale, Università di Padova, via Marzolo 9, 35131 Padova, Italy bAustralian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland, Building

75, Cnr College and Cooper Rds, Brisbane, 4072, Australia cDipartimento di Scienze Chimiche, Università di Padova, via Marzolo 1, 35131 Padova, Italy

1Università di Padova Dipartimento di Ingegneria Industriale Via Marzolo, 9 35131 PADOVA – Italy Tel: 0039 049 8275506 Fax 0039 049 82755005 e-mail [email protected] Figure S1 Block diagram of the production procedure used for preparing the nanocomposite plaques of

PMMA-ZnO. Figure S2 FTIR spectra of PMMA and PMMA-ZnO plaques.

From the FTIR spectra of the two samples it is possible to note the presence of the distinctive vibration bands of PMMA [1]. In particular the band at 1722 cm−1 can be attributed to the acrylate carboxyl

−1 group. The band at 1436 cm can be attributed to the bending vibration of the C–H bonds of the –CH3 group. The two bands at 1378 cm−1 and 747 cm−1 can be attributed to the α-methyl group vibrations.

The band at 985 cm−1 is the characteristic absorption vibration of PMMA, together with the bands at

1062 cm−1 and 843 cm−1.The distinct absorption band at 1145 cm−1 and 1237 cm-1 can be attributed to the C–O–C stretching vibrations. The two bands at 2991 cm−1 and 2954 cm−1 can be assigned to the C–

H bond stretching vibrations of the –CH3 and –CH2- groups, respectively.

[1] Duan G, Zhang C, Li A, Yang X, Lu L, Wang X (2008)Preparation and Characterization of

Mesoporous Zirconia Made by Using a Poly (methyl methacrylate) Template Nanoscale Res Lett.

3:118-122 Figure S3Dependence on temperature of the real component of the permittivity (top) and tanδ (bottom) of the sample I (PMMA; left side) and sample II (PMMA-ZnO; right side). 0.6 30°C 50°C 0.5 fit

0.4

" 0.3 

0.2

0.1

0.0 2 3 4 5 6 '

Figure S4 Nyquist plot of selected permittivity spectra of material II at 30 and 50°C. Fitting curves were determined by equation (1).

A detailed description of the polarization (Maxwell-Wagner-Sillars Polarization) together with representation of equivalent circuits and their analytical counterpart is reported in ref 15 pp. 107-180.