Bi-functional catalytic performance of silver manganite/polypyrrole nanocomposite for electrocatalytic sensing and photocatalytic degradation

Abstract

Detection and degradation of perilous polluting materials are important in the study of health and environmental issues. Nowadays, researches are on the path to invent dual functional materials. On that basis, we have designed a simple one-pot synthesis of silver manganite incorporated polypyrrole polymer nanocomposite (AMNPY). The physicochemical, morphological, electrical and optical properties of as-synthesized nanocomposites were characterized using PXRD, XPS, FESEM, TEM, EDX, Elemental Mapping, UV-DRS, FTIR, CV, DPV and EIS techniques. Incorporation of polypyrrole (PPy) with silver manganite (AMN) was initially studied using FTIR spectral data. The microscopic images have revealed the particles into nano range and show better correlation with the average particle size, which was calculated from PXRD analysis. Furthermore, the photocatalytic and electrocatalytic potential of the as-synthesized nanocomposite were evaluated. AMNPY exhibits excellent activity in the photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange dye (99.6 %) and chloramphenicol drug (98.9 %) within 30 min. The photocatalyst was highly recyclable which was evaluated and confirmed up to 5 cycles. Further, on the evaluation of electrochemical sensing activity of AMNPY modified screen printed carbon electrode (AMNPY/SPCE) demonstrated an excellent sensing in the detection of antibiotic drug furazolidone. The AMNPY/SPCE exhibited two wide linear response ranges (0.1 μM to 10 μM; 18 μM to 906 μM) along with lower detection limit of about 3 nM. In addition to this, the potential sensor proved an outstanding sensitivity of 6.95 μA μM−1 cm-2 and prominent selectivity even in the presence of biomolecules, metal ions and strong interfering derivatives.