Abstract
Herein, a new type of nanocomposite (NC) films has been prepared based on polycarbonate (PC) impregnated by core–shells (PANI + HNTs) via intercalated method for enhancing specific capacitance, optical, photocatalysis and photovoltaic efficiency. For this target, optical parameters, electrochemical specific capacitance/energy, power of photocatalyst to degradation MG dye and photovoltaic performance of PC/(PANI + HNTs) NCs were investigated. The PC-NCs showed thermal stability over 450 °C. Optical band gap of PC-NC reduced to 2.87 eV. Specific capacitance raised to 51.24 F/g as well as specific energy increased to 130.94 J/g of PC-NCs, which higher by 2.5 folds compared to pure PC. The photocatalyst PC/4%(PANI + HNTs) film exhibited faster photodegrading of MG dye, where around 98.2% of MG dye was degraded within 44 min under sunlight. This film showed high activity at different pH (3, 7 and 9) as well as high performance and stability for five sequential reuses. The optimized photocatalytic PC/4%(PANI + HNTs) NC in KI/I
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electrolyte exhibits significant improvement in photovoltaic activity. The power conversion efficiency of NC film around 8.01% compared to 1.91% for pure PC under 60 mW/cm
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illuminations. These findings denote the PC/(PANI + HNTs) NC films can be adjustable for used in photocatalysis, optically and energy storage devices.