Poly(1-Napthylamine) Nanoparticles as Potential Scaffold for Supercapacitor and Photocatalytic Applications

Ahmad Umar; Sundararajan Ashok Kumar; Daniel Rani Rosaline; Hassan Algadi; Ahmed A Ibrahim; Faheem Ahmed; Edson Luiz Foletto; Savariroyan Stephen Rajkumar Inbanathan

doi:10.3390/mi13091528

Poly(1-Napthylamine) Nanoparticles as Potential Scaffold for Supercapacitor and Photocatalytic Applications

Micromachines (Basel). 2022 Sep 16;13(9):1528. doi: 10.3390/mi13091528.

Authors

Ahmad Umar^{1

2}, Sundararajan Ashok Kumar³, Daniel Rani Rosaline⁴, Hassan Algadi⁵, Ahmed A Ibrahim^{1

2}, Faheem Ahmed⁶, Edson Luiz Foletto⁷, Savariroyan Stephen Rajkumar Inbanathan³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, College of Science and Arts, and Promising Centre for Sensors and Electronic Devices (PCSED), Najran University, Najran 11001, Saudi Arabia.
² Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA.
³ Post Graduate and Research, Department of Physics, The American College, Madurai 625002, Tamil Nadu, India.
⁴ Post Graduate and Research, Department of Chemistry, Lady Doak College, Madurai 625002, Tamil Nadu, India.
⁵ Department of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering, Najran University, Najran 11001, Saudi Arabia.
⁶ Department of Physics, College of Science, King Faisal University, Al-Ahsa 31982, Saudi Arabia.
⁷ Graduate Program in Chemical Engineering, Federal University of Santa Maria, Santa Maria 97105-900, RS, Brazil.

Abstract

Herein, we explore the supercapacitor and photocatalytic applications of poly(1-naphthylamine) (PNA) nanoparticles. The PNA nanoparticles were synthesized by using polymerization of 1-naphthylamine and characterized with several techniques in order to understand the morphological, structural, optical and compositional properties. The structural and morphological properties confirmed the formation of crystalline nanoparticles of PNA. The Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectrum revealed the successful polymerization of 1-naphthylamine monomer to PNA. The absorption peaks that appeared at 236 and 309 nm in the UV−Vis spectrum for PNA nanoparticles represented the π−π* transition. The supercapacitor properties of the prepared PNA nanoparticles were evaluated with cyclic voltammetry (CV) and galvanostatic charge−discharge (GCD) methods at different scan rates and current densities, respectively. The effective series resistance was calculated using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), resulting in a minimum resistance value of 1.5 Ω. The highest specific capacitance value of PNA was found to be 255 Fg−1. This electrode also exhibited excellent stability with >93% capacitance retention for 1000 cycles, as measured at 1A g−1. Further, the prepared PNA nanoparticles were used as an effective photocatalyst for the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye, which exhibited ~61% degradation under UV light irradiation. The observed results revealed that PNA nanoparticles are not only a potential electrode material for supercapacitor applications but also an efficient photocatalyst for the photocatalytic degradation of hazardous and toxic organic dyes.

Keywords: Nanoparticles; Photocatalysis; Poly(1-naphthylamine); Supercapacitor.

Grants and funding

The authors are thankful to the Deanship of Scientific Research at Najran University, Najran, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, for support and funds under the National Research Priority funding program, grant no. NU/NRP/SERC/11/1.