Synthesis and Characterization of 2D-WS2 Incorporated Polyaniline Nanocomposites as Photo Catalyst for Methylene Blue Degradation

Abstract

2D-WS2 incorporated polyaniline nanocomposites (WS2-PANI) with varying WS2 loadings were synthesized by a facile in situ oxidative polymerization technique which effectively promoted photocatalytic waste-water remediation using methylene blue (MB) as the probe molecules. The physicochemical properties of WS2-PANI (1–5) nanocomposites were investigated using multifarious techniques such as FT-IR, XRD, BET surface area, TGA, FESEM, and HRTEM. An electron microscopy analysis that was performed using HRTEM analysis confirm the layered structure of WS2 with periodic planes (100) separated by 0.27 nm. The photocatalytic performance of the WS2-PANI (1–5) for MB degradation performed under UV photo irradiation clearly showed that 2 wt.% WS2-PANI outperformed other variants with 93% degradation MB within 90 min. Furthermore, the catalytic material was reusable for five cycles without a significant loss of the catalytic performance.