Polyaniline/Manganese-Cobalt ferrite nanocomposite as an efficient material for crystal violet dye degradation under sunlight irradiation

Abstract

In the present work, the polyaniline (PANI) and Mn0.25Co0.75Fe2O4 (MCF) nanocomposites with varying weight percentage of MCF (0, 10, 20, 50, 100) were synthesized for the degradation of the crystal violet dye under solar radiation. The PANI/MCF nanocomposites were synthesized via in-situ chemical oxidative polymerization of aniline. The XRD and FTIR spectra confirmed the formation of pure phase for all the samples. The crystallite size for MCF and PANI/MCF have been found in the range of 20–30 nm. FTIR spectra showed all the prominent peaks of MCF and PANI. PANI/MCF nanocomposite with 10 and 20 wt% of MCF showed maximum degradation efficiency. The degradation efficiency for PANI/MCF nanocomposites with 10 and 20 wt% are 77% and 89%, respectively in 75 min of reaction time. It is attributed to the formation of heterogeneous photocatalysts having lower values of optical band gap. The degradation rate constant for PANI/MCF nanocomposites with 10 and 20 wt% of MCF is maximum with values 0.5 and 0.7 min−1, respectively.