Abstract
► The present work reports the synthesis, characterization conducting behaviour and microbiological activity of novel polyanilineZr(IV)sulphosalicylate nano-composite cation exchanger. ► This work claims superior physiochemical properties in terms of higher ion-exchange capacity (1.78
meq
g
−1 for Na
+), better thermal stability. ► Its characterization has been done on the basis of AFM and RAMAN spectroscopy, besides FTIR, XRD, SEM and TEM studies. ► The nano-composite material shows more significant microbiological activity compared to known antibiotics, can be used as ion-exchange material and semiconducting material.
A series of organic–inorganic conducting nano-composite cation-exchanger have been synthesized via sol–gel method and characterized by using FTIR, XRD, TGA-DTA, SEM, TEM, AFM and Raman studies. The structural studies confirm the semi-crystalline nature of the material with the particle size ranging from 2 to 20
nm. The observed band gap for the different samples was found to be in the range of 3.19–3.65
eV which shows that nano-composite materials cover semiconducting range. Activation energy was also calculated using thermo gravimetric analysis. Electrical measurements show that the resistivity of samples is highly dependent on the % of inorganic precipitate within the composite. Nano-composite material has also been tested against the various bacterial (
Escherichia coli,
Bacillus thuringiensis and
Pseudomonas aeruginosa) and fungal strains (
Aspergillus nigrus,
Fusarium oxysporum and
Penicillium chrysogenum) and relatively higher activities were observed than the known antibiotics.