Abstract
Nanoparticles of zinc oxide (ZnO) with acicular rod-like morphology were synthesized using a bicontinuous microemulsion and coated with polypyrrole (PPy), by polymerization in the presence of dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate (AOT) surfactant with ammonium persulfate as oxidizing agent to obtain nanocomposites of ZnO/PPy. The resulting material was characterized by FTIR, Raman spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. The synthesized nanocomposite consisted of ZnO nanoparticles immersed in a polypyrrole matrix with a conductivity of 6.4 × 10−6 S/cm. The synthesized nanocomposite was tested in the photodegradation of methylene blue (MB) dye under visible light irradiation resulting in photodegradation efficiency of 95.2 % after 60 min of irradiation using 3.6 g/L of nanocomposite in an aqueous solution of MB at 20 mg/L. Pseudo first-order kinetics were used to describe the photodegradation reactions.
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Acknowledgements
B.E. Castillo-Reyes acknowledges the scholarship from CONACYT (229857). V.M.O.M. wants to thank the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología—México by Grant # SEP-80843. V.M.O.M. thanks the hospitality of Dr. Farías-Cepeda at the sabbatical leave in Facultad de Ciencias Químicas, Universidad Autónoma de Coahuila.
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Ovando-Medina, V.M., López, R.G., Castillo-Reyes, B.E. et al. Composite of acicular rod-like ZnO nanoparticles and semiconducting polypyrrole photoactive under visible light irradiation for methylene blue dye photodegradation. Colloid Polym Sci 293, 3459–3469 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00396-015-3717-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00396-015-3717-2