Ternary Titania-Cobalt Ferrite-Polyaniline Nanocomposite: A Magnetically Recyclable Hybrid for Adsorption and Photodegradation of Dyes under Visible Light.

A straightforward strategy is designed for the fabrication of magnetically recyclable ternary titania-cobalt ferrite-polyaniline (P25-CoFe2O4-PANI) photocatalysts with differing P25/CoFe2O4 ratio. The pseudo-second-order and Langmuir models are found to be most suitable for describing the adsorption of methyl orange (MO) onto the photocatalysts. The photocatalytic activity of P25-CoFe2O4-PANI is evaluated by the degradation of various dyes under visible light irradiation, and the results show that the ternary P25-CoFe2O4-PANI photocatalyst exhibits high photocatalytic activity due to the good adsorption capacity of the hybrid and the introduction of P25, which can further improve the separation of the light-induced electron hole pairs. The degradation of anionic dyes is much more effective than that of cationic dyes due to the negatively charged groups of anionic dyes undergo electrostatic attraction with the positively charged backbone of PANI, and such an effective adsorption helps in promoting the degradation.