Synthesis of polyaniline-doped magnetic iron foam photo catalyst (PANI@mIF) for integrated adsorptive photocatalytic degradation of nicosulfuron

ABSTRACT

Nicosulfuron have low volatility and slow biodegradation rate, leading to its long persistency in soil and crops, which further upraised the risk of contamination of nearby water and severe damage to the crop rotation as may be its precursors are more harmful than nicosulfuron itself. In the present work, we performed a degradation study for the efficient removal of nicosulfuron from soil and water using Polyaniline-doped magnetic iron foam (PANI@mIF). The Photo catalyst was synthesised by doping of polyaniline on magnetic iron foam at 70°C and applied for the efficient photocatalytic degradation of nicosulfuron. PANI@mIF was then characterised through FTIR, SEM, EDX and XRD. The degradation of nicosulfuron was investigated under UV radiations and the resulted data were examined by fitting isotherms models. The Langmair model is well fitted to the adsorption data with R² of 0.925, which demonstrates monolayer adsorption of nicosulfuron on the surface of PANI@mIF. The maximum adsorption capacity and percent degradation of 87% was achieved with PANI@mIF. Comparatively, good adsorption capacity of PANI@mIF is attributed to a large number of H bonding and electrostatic interactions. Kinetic study indicates the adsorption of nicosulfuron by PANI@mIF followed 2nd order kinetics with R² of 0.958.The negative values of Gibbs free energy (−18294.3, 19543.1,-7530.4, −7307.7 and −7969.8), enthalpy (−1.97 × 10⁻⁴) and entropy (−3.54 × 10⁻³) indicate spontaneous and exothermic nature of the process. The reusable nature of PANI@mIF with 5 batches reflected its inventive photo catalytic behaviour for real sample applications and waste water treatment.

KEYWORDS:

• Iron foam
• polyaniline nicosulfuron
• photo catalysis
• adsorption and degradation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).