Abstract:
In recent years, environmental pollution is the most important problem to be solved. As an
ef ective method to control environmental pollution, semiconductor photocatalyst has been
widely studied and applied in the field of Photocatalysis. Photocatalytic degradation technology
is a new pollutant treatment method, which has the advantages of simple operation, low energy
consumption, mild reaction conditions with no formation of secondary pollution. Ag-CdO/PANI
nanocomposite was prepared via the sol-gel technique following in situ oxidative polymerization
of polyaniline (PANI). XRD, UV-Vis, and FT-IR spectroscopy were employed to study the crystal
size, energy band gap, and bond structure of synthesized nanocomposites. Accordingly, SEM
result depicts that the surface morphology of Nanocomposite seems to be composed of
agglomerated micron-scaled grains with smaller size as compared to CdO NPs and Ag-CdO
NPs. The FT-IR spectrum shows the absorption peak corresponds to CdO NPs, Ag-O in Ag
doped CdO NPs and C-N plane deformation in PANI; strongly confirmed that Ag-CdO NPs were
successfully modified with PANI. The XRD patterns ascribed the several sharp and highly
intensive dif raction peaks confirms the presence of cubic CdO and Ag-CdO NPs structure with
decreasing crystalline size from 40.58 nm and 36.43 nm while further decreased to 10.29 nm
after Nanocomposite formation. Ag-CdO/PANI Nanocomposite exhibited the most ef ective
degradation ef iciency of 98.64 % at the optimum working conditions of 12 ppm concentration of
wastewater, pH 8, and 140Mg catalyst load under visible light with an irradiation time of 210
Min. The kinetic study of photocatalytic degradation of wastewater containing dye follows
pseudo-first-order reaction with rate constant (kapp) of 0.021s
-1
. Finally, the researcher have
reported the Photocatalysis of Ag-CdO/PANI Nano composite is cost ef ective alternative for the
treatment of waste water containing organic pollutants.
