Polypyrrole-Based Composites for Dyes Removal From Contaminated Water

Dyes are one of the most prevalent environmental contaminants at present times. The presence of dye pollutants in water not only adversely affects aquatic life but human health also owing to their mutagenic and carcinogenic nature. Several approaches have been developed over the time for efficient and cost effective removal of dyes from contaminated water. Polypyrrole (PPy)-based composites are proved to be promising adsorbent materials for dye removal as they are identified with some distinctive features such as hydrophilic and tunable surface functionalities, high flexibility along with mechanical strength and chemical versatility. Such composites maintain the inherent characteristics of pyrrole matrix such as non-toxic nature, ion exchange potential, high adsorption capacity and redox properties along with modified or upgraded properties because of blending with other substrates. Moreover, some admirable aspects including facile fabrication process, easy processability, thermal stability, biodegradability, moisture and solvent resistance and biocompatible nature render these composites suitable for water remediation applications. The present chapter reviews PPy-based composites with emphasis on their synthetic strategies, functionalization and potential application as adsorbent for removal of various synthetic dyes from water. The diverse elements of PPy composites based adsorption process such as its mechanism, experimental variables for optimization of adsorption, driving force for dye removal and its kinetic aspects are overviewed. It comprehensively entails a variety of PPy-based composites including PPy coated biocomposites, PPy-carbon based material composites and PPy-metal oxides composites. Furthermore, literature significantly suggests enhanced photocatalytic behavior of PPy-based composites for removal of dye pollutants in aqueous media so, a detailed account in this regard have also been presented here. At last, future prospects of PPy-based composites in dye removal are discussed precisely.