“…[9,10] These are in addition to the broad PANI peaks, further confirming the existence of Au nanoparticles in the composite hollow nanospheres. The average particle size of nanoparticles was estimated based on the Scherrer equation (D ¼ Rl/ bcosu max ), [17,18] where D is the average particle size in nm, R is Scherrer constant (0.89), l is the wavelength of the X-rays (0.154056 nm), b is the width of the diffraction peak at half height in radians, applied to the (111) peak, and u is the angle at the maximum peak. The average nanoparticle diameter calculated from the XRD data according to the Scherrer equation is 13 AE 4 nm, which is about twice the size of the value obtained from the TEM images, indicating some non-uniformity of the particle sizes.…”