Recent Advances in Polyaniline Nanocomposites as Potential Adsorbents for Removal of Organic Water Toxicants
Parmeshwar Lal Meena, Ajay Kumar Surela, Manickam Selvaraj
Abstract
ABSTRACT Water contamination has become a huge challenging task across the globe for the scientific community due to geogenic and anthropogenic processes. The infection of water resources is mainly caused by organic and inorganic toxicants. Consumption of contaminated water can cause serious health problems to living organisms, including human beings. With the progress of materials science and technological applications of various materials, the use of composite materials for water treatment has gained enormous attention. Composites of conducting polymers, chiefly polyaniline composites, received growing research interest in the field of water purification and are widely reported in the literature as adsorbents, catalysts, membranes, sensors, and so on, due to their better porosity, stability, surface modification, easy synthesis, and improvement of photo‐absorbance ability, presence of pollutant attracting functionalities, and easily introduction of new functional groups. Polyaniline nanocomposite materials can be produced using polyaniline as the matrix phase and various types of nanofillers, like metal‐based materials, biomaterials, carbon materials, organic materials, and so on, utilizing various synthesis procedures. Thus, polyaniline nanocomposites are a suitable and promising candidate for effectively subtracting toxic organic and inorganic water pollutants from wastewater and polluted water. The current review study presents recent advancements in polyaniline nanocomposites as potential adsorbents for effectively removing toxic organic water contaminants and adsorption mechanisms of pollutants, especially organic dyes, phenolic compounds, and other organic pollutants.