Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Dyes with Magnetically Separable PANI/Fe3O4 Composite under Both UV and Visible-light Irradiation

Abstract

The creation of a novel composite photocatalyst has gained great attention in the field of organic dye remediation. Herein, the PANI/Fe3O4 photocatalyst has been prepared using the chemical oxidative polymerization of aniline. The as-prepared photocatalyst represents a denser and uniform morphology along with strong magnetic properties. The photocatalytic activity of the PANI/Fe3O4 was investigated for the degradation of Malachite Green (MG), Jakazol Kala (JK) and Levafix Red (LR). In the presence of PANI/Fe3O4 composite, the reaction rate constants were found to be 0.1997, 0.0521, and 0.1993 min(-1) for MG, JK and LR, under UV-light irradiation and 0.0522, 0.0491, 0.0544 min(-1) under visible light irradiation, respectively. The nanocomposite can be easily separated from the treated water and reused several times. The suppression of electron recombination, the reduced bandgap and the broad light-harvesting in both UV and visible-light regions contribute to the advanced photocatalytic performance of the PANI/Fe3O4.