Polyaniline based hybrid bionanocomposites with enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity and antifungal activity

Nickel doped polyaniline/cellulose bionanocomposites have been synthesized via in-situ polymerization of aniline and hydrothermally prepared nickel nanoparticles. The as prepared materials were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), ultraviolet-visible (UV-vis) spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Cyclic Voltammetry (CV) was used to determine the electrochemical surface area (ECSA) of the materials by using the electrochemical double layer capacitance (EDLC) data. SEM images reveal that synthesized nanocomposites contain spherical Ni nanoparticles scattered uniformly within PANI-Cellulose matrix. The as prepared materials exhibited significant degradation of reactive orange (RO-16) dye under visible light. Incorporation of Ni nanoparticles in to the polymer matrix causes strong adsorption of dye in case of PANI/C/Ni, PANI/Ni as compared to that of PANI. The photodegradation of RO-16 was achieved by the electron-hole pair separation and formation of reactive species by trapping of the photo generated electron from the surface of photo catalyst. Scavengers were added to identify the primary reactive species. Fluorescence spectroscopy was to study the recombination behavior of charge carriers (electron-hole pair) during photodegradation. Moreover, the anti-fungal nature of the bionanocomposites was also examined and the materials were found to be effective in growth control of two pathogenic fungal strains- Rhizoctonia solani and Alternaria alternate.