LAUSR

Abstract Organic–inorganic photocatalytic hybrid nanocomposites based on titanium oxide nanoparticle and polyaniline decorated with graphene oxide were synthesized via in situ chemical oxidative method using ammonium persulphate as an initiator and different weight percentages of TiO 2 nanoparticles. The materials were characterized by using conventional techniques like UV–vis spectroscopy, FT-IR spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction. The electrical conductivity of the nanocomposites was found in the range of semiconducting materials. The nanocomposites possess broad application prospects covering the field of semiconducting devices, solar cells, sensors, microwave-absorbing materials and so on. The nanocomposites also exhibit promising photocatalytic activity towards degradation of methylene blue (MB) and rhodamine B dye in the presence of UV-light radiation. Compared to pure PANI and TiO 2 nanoparticles, the GO/PANI/TiO 2 nanocomposite showed much improvement in degradation efficiency. Significant photodegradation was observed with the molecules where 98.9% degradation was noted with 20% of TiO 2 nanoparticles within 1 h under short-wavelength UV-light. Graphic abstract