Water soluble gold-polyaniline nanocomposite: A substrate for surface enhanced Raman scattering and catalyst for dye degradation

In this work, a water-soluble gold nanoparticle-encapsulated polyaniline nanocomposite (AuNP-PANI) was prepared in the presence of an ionic surfactant such as cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) using versatile two steps method. The prepared nanoparticles (AuNPs) were characterized by UV–Visible spectroscopy, Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) and Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS). The nanocomposite (AuNP-PANI) were initially characterized using UV–Visible spectroscopy, Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope (STEM) and DLS. The structure and composition of AuNP-PANI further characterized using Fourier Transmission Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction study (XRD), Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) and Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Electrochemical properties of AuNP-PANI were studied using Cyclic Voltammetry (CV). The prepared nanocomposite exhibited good surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) of 4-amino thiophenol (4-ATP) and 4- (dimethyl amino) pyridine (4-DMAP) for which the enhancement factor (EF) were found to be1.95 × 10⁵ and 2.016 × 10⁵, respectively. The nanocomposite also showed excellent catalytic activity for the chemical degradation of Congo red (CR) and methylene blue (MB) as evidenced from the calculated rate constants which were determined to be 0.30 s⁻¹ and 0.33 s⁻¹, respectively.