Open AccessPhotocatalytic activity of nanopolyaniline (NPA) on phenol degradation
Author(s) -
Oluma Fufa Tesfa,
Tadesse Mengesha Abi,
Prakash Yadav
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
african journal of pure and applied chemistry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1996-0840
DOI - 10.5897/ajpac2016.0690
Subject(s) - phenol , photocatalysis , chemistry , fourier transform infrared spectroscopy , crystallite , degradation (telecommunications) , monoclinic crystal system , aniline , nuclear chemistry , reaction rate constant , photodegradation , polyaniline , kinetics , polymerization , chemical engineering , organic chemistry , catalysis , crystal structure , polymer , crystallography , telecommunications , physics , quantum mechanics , computer science , engineering
Nanopolyaniline (NPA) has been synthesized by chemical oxidative polymerization of aniline and characterized using Fourier transmission infrared (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and ultra-violet visible techniques. XRD patterns confirm that NPA has crystallite size of 37 nm with monoclinic structure and UV-visible spectra indicate its band gap energy is 1.96 electron volts. Photocatalytic efficiency of as-synthesized NPA was studied using degradation of phenol as a probe. Effects of photocatalyst load, pH and phenol initial concentration on the degradation of phenol were investigated. Using phenol initial concentration (50 mg L-1) and optimum photocatalyst load (200 mgL-1) and pH 10, degradation of phenol at 3 h was 93.5%. Degradation of phenol follows first order kinetics with rate constant (k) 1.62×10-2 min-1. Key words: Degradation, photocatalytic efficiency, polyaniline, phenol, X-ray diffraction (XRD).
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