Fabrication of Polyaniline@β-cyclodextrin Nanocomposite for Adsorption of Carcinogenic Phenol from Wastewater

We synthesized a stable, eco-friendly, and low-cost polyaniline@β-cyclodextrin (PANI@β-CD) nanocomposite via oxidative polymerization for phenol adsorption from water waste since phenol pollution is a global danger to human and animal health and the environment. The production of the composite and synergistic alteration of PANI with β-CD resulted in 66% reduction in particle size from 59 nm (PANI) to 20 nm (PANI@β-CD) as well as better phenol adsorption. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) were used to analyze the produced PANI@β-CD nanocomposite. Our results show the optimum conditions for phenol adsorption: time (50 min), pH (8.0), nanosorbent dose (0.5 g), and the sorption isotherm fitted with Langmuir model; the monolayer adsorption capacity of the prepared PANI@β-CD for phenol was determined to be 8.56 mg g^-1. The average pore size, total pore volume, and surface area of PANI/βCD nanocomposite are 15.62 nm, 0.1586 cm³/g, and 90.901 m²/g, respectively, for the pseudo second order model. Finally, modifying PANI nanoparticles with βCD allowed reusability up to four cycles with superior adsorption performance of ∼95% using (0.01 N) HNO₃.