Design of Phytic Acid Crosslinked Xerogels as Organic Photocatalysts for Visible Light‐Assisted Degradation of Dyes

Abstract

Extensive research is being carried out on the degradation of water pollutants using various strategies to overcome the global water crisis. In the present study, xerogels as a better alternative is utilized to metal oxides for the photocatalytic degradation of toxic water pollutants such as dyes. Xerogels of polyaniline (PANI) and polypyrrole (PPy) are synthesized using phytic acid as a dopant as well as cross‐linker in the weight ratios of 1:1, 1:2, and 2:1 via simple chemical oxidative polymerization. The synthesized xerogels are analyzed for their spectral, morphological, thermal, and optical properties using FTIR, UV–vis, XRD, SEM, and TGA techniques. The xerogels are also tested for their photocatalytic activity against textile dyes – Methylene Blue (MB), Alizarin Red S, (ARS), Rhodamine B (RhB), and Methyl Orange (MO). Among all the composite xerogels, PANI/PPy‐2/1 showed excellent degradation efficiency of 91% for MB dye, 88% for RhB dye, 96% for ARS dye, and 92% for MO dye respectively. The composite PANI/PPy xerogels showed better degradation efficiency than their pristine counterparts. The fragments of the degraded dyes are examined using the LCMS technique and a tentative dye degradation mechanism is proposed.