NiFe-PANI composites synthesized by electrodeposition for enhanced photocatalytic degradation of diclofenac sodium from wastewater.

A simple inexpensive approach was used to synthesize NiFe-PANI nanocomposites and used for photodegradation of diclofenac sodium (DCF) in water sources. Morphological, optical, structural, and catalytic properties of the nanocomposites were investigated using X-ray diffraction (XRD) to confirm the cubic structure of NiFe nanoparticles and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) that revealed the presence of NiFe and PANI, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed the uniform distribution of NiFe nanoparticles onto the surface of PANI, Energy-Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) was utilized to validate the composition of the obtained Permalloy NiFe-PANI nanocomposites, optical properties confirmed the decrease of E band gap from 2.62 to 2.51 eV by the addition of NiFe. The NiFe-PANI composite showed superior photocatalytic efficiency in degrading DCF, achieving 82.53% degradation in 15 min and 97.89% in 60 min. This was significantly higher than the PANI alone, which achieved 62.72 and 93.48% degradation in the same time intervals respectively. The results indicated that the photocatalytic efficiency remained consistent, with no observable decrease, even after five cycles of recycling. The NiFe-PANI catalyst served as an efficient and cost-effective photocatalyst for DCF degradation, and the study holds promise for the photocatalytic removal of other organic pollutants from water and wastewater.