Abstract

Polyaniline (PANI)/zinc oxide (ZnO) nanocomposites have been synthesized by in-situ polymerization of aniline monomer with ZnO nanomaterials. The PANI/ZnO nanocomposites were used as photocatalyst in the photodegradation of methylene blue dye (MB) molecules in aqueous solution. The results showed that PANI/ZnO nanocomposite greatly enhanced photocatalytic activities compared with pristine polyaniline might due to high photoexcited electronhole pairs charge separation. The photocatalytic activities of PANI/ZnO nanocomposites increased with increasing ZnO content, however, further increasing ZnO content over 50% induced the formation of more agglomerates, which could act as recombination centers of photoexcited electronhole pairs, leading to decreased photocatalytic activity. The kinetics of photodegradation of MB dye using PANI/ZnO(ZnO content 50 % ) nanocomposites photocatalyst was found to be of the first order.

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