Polyaniline enwrapped CoFe2O4/g-CN ternary nanocomposite for adsorption driven photocatalytic degradation of explicitly diverse organic pollutants

Abstract

The present study strives to unlock the potential of CoFe2O4 supported over graphitic carbon nitride (g-CN) and polyaniline (PANI) as photocatalyst for wastewater decontamination. For this purpose, a series of PANI@CoFe2O4/g-CN (PA-CNC) nanocomposites were fabricated by varying PANI: CoFe2O4/g-CN ratio (0.25:1, 0.5:1, 1:1 and 2:1) employing in-situ oxidative polymerization method. The structure, morphology, optical and magnetic properties of the nanocomposites were characterized using FT-IR, Raman, XRD, FE-SEM, HR-TEM, XPS, UV-DRS, PL, EIS, VSM and BET analysis. The ternary nanocomposites were investigated for the removal of ofloxacin (OFX), sulfamethoxazole (SFX), p-nitrophenol (PNP) and malathion (MT) as model pollutants. Under optimized reaction conditions, the pseudo-first order rate constant value of PA-CNC (0.5:1) nanocomposite for the degradation of OFX (5.3 × 10−2 min−1) was observed to be nearly 4 times to that of pristine CoFe2O4 (1.3 × 10−2 min−1). The incorporation of PANI has improved the adsorption capacity of nanocomposites owing to synergistic effect of different interactions between pollutant molecules and PANI that subsequently augmented the rate of photocatalytic degradation of pollutants. Moreover, PANI improved the visible light absorption capacity and promoted the separation of photogenerated charge carriers across the ternary heterojunction. The magnetic recyclability up to four cycles highlighted the desirability of PANI@CoFe2O4/g-CN nanocomposites for the abatement of wide range of pollutants.