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Nowadays, environmental pollution due to discharge of organic pollutants from food, textile, and pharmaceutical industries into clean water and development of contagious diseases due to pathogenic organisms provide impetus to material researcher to fabricate novel design for efficient photocatalyst and antimicrobial agents. In this regard, designing a core-shell heterojunction catalyst based on metal oxides is considered an auspicious approach. In present study, combating the problems of singular oxides, core-shell PANI-CeO 2 -Fe 2 O 3 –NiO nanocomposite (PCFN) and CeO 2 –Fe 2 O 3 –NiO nanocomposite (CFN) was synthesized through sol-gel and oxidative polymerization route with cetyletrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) as surfactant. The XRD, FTIR, and Raman confirmed the formation of nanocomposites with core-shell morphology composed of PANI (shell) and oxides (Core) in PCFN with a particle size of 52 nm (TEM). Surprisingly, PCFN has lower band gap, e−/h+ recombination, and larger charge transfer character than CFN. The decomposition test using MB and MO dyes showed that PCFN degraded 99%, 98%, while CFN degraded only 73% and 54%, respectively, under 50 min sunlight illumination. The reusability was assessed up to 7th cycle for PCFN. The influence of operational parameters (catalyst dose, dye concentration, pH) was tested for PCFN. Further, the antimicrobial action against S. aureus (gram + ve), E. coli (gram -ve) were also tested. The supreme performance of PCFN has been credited to heterostructure dual Z-scheme formation and core-shell morphology supported with PANI, which suppresses the e−/h+ recombination process by promoting their separation. The present finding indicated that the PCFN is a promising modifier for bacterial disinfection and acts as a superb photocatalyst through core-shell formation with PANI support. • Synthesis of core-shell PANI-CeO 2 -Fe 2 O 3 –NiO nanocomposite via solution method. • Enhanced photodegradation of MB and MO dyes under natural sunlight. • The higher ability to inhibit the growth of S. aureus and E. coli bacterial strains. • Dual Z-scheme heterostructure formation leads to better charge transfer. • Efficient catalyst for dye pollutant elimination and bacterial disinfection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Binary NiO-Fe2O3, NiO-CdO nanocomposites, and ternary NiO-Fe2O3-CdO nanocomposite are synthesized using facile co-precipitation method, and their photocatalytic and antibacterial properties are studied. The as-obtained products are characterized using different analytical techniques. The microstructural parameters were calculated using X-ray diffraction data. UV–vis spectra technique was used to calculate the bandgap and listed 3.1, 2.7, and 2.5 eV for NiO-Fe2O3, NiO-CdO, and NiO-Fe2O3-CdO nanocomposite, respectively. The photocatalytic activity of as-obtained products was tested under visible light against methylene blue (MB) dye. The NiO-Fe2O3-CdO nanocomposite has shown higher degradation efficiency as compared to binary nanocomposites and revealed improve electron–hole separation efficiency. The photocatalytic performance of NiO-Fe2O3-CdO nanocomposite was also tested for other synthetic dyes such as rhodamine-B (RhB), methyl orange (MO), and cresol red (CR). The antibacterial performance of grown products was tested against E. coli bacteria. The ternary NiO-Fe2O3-CdO nanocomposite has shown higher antibacterial activity than binary NiO-Fe2O3 and NiO-CdO nanocomposites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]