Studying the electrical, thermal, and photocatalytic activity of nanocomposite of polypyrrole with the photoadduct of K3 [Fe(CN)6] and diethylenetriamine

Abstract

The present work reports the synthesis of nanocomposite of polypyrrole with [Fe(CN)3 (dien)].H2O photoadduct via in-situ oxidative chemical polymerisation. Photoadduct was synthesised by irradiating an equimolar mixture of K3 [Fe(CN)6] and diethylenetriamine (dien) using Osram photo lamp. The successful synthesis of photoadduct was proved by Elemental analysis, UV-Vis and FTIR spectra. Nanocomposite of photoadduct with PPY was then prepared by oxidative chemical polymerization using FeCl3 as oxidant. The successful synthesis of the nanocomposite was confirmed from FTIR, XRD and SEM. The nanocomposite showed significant increase in thermal stability, dielectric constant and ac-conductivity as compared to pure polypyrrole. The photocatalytic activity of the materials was also studied against the methyl orange (MO) dye under UV-Vis light and nanocomposite showed efficient photocatalytic activity (91 % degradation after 2 hrs) than pure PPY which showed only 24% degradation of dye after 2 hrs. Thus as synthesised nanocomposite can be effectively utilised for the removal of organic dyes.