Abstract
In sharp contrast to conventional photosensitization methods in which the organic pigments were often adsorbed, herein we present a study on natural vegetable pigment inserted TiO2 aerogel nanocomposites and we directly use red cabbage anthocyanin (RCP) as a structure-directing agent. It was found that pure TiO2 aerogel nanocomposite did not exhibit any meaningful activity for photocatalytic reduction of Cr(VI). However, the photocatalytic reduction activity was greatly improved by the RCP inserted TiO2 aerogel nanocomposites under visible-light irradiation, which was approximately 2- and 12.3-fold higher than that of TiO2 aerogel conventionally photosensitized by RCP and pure TiO2 aerogel nanocomposites, respectively. It also exhibited good stability and could be reused at least three times without losing a significant amount of its activity.
Highlights
Photosensitization of TiO2 nanocomposite by organic pigments is a convenient way to develop visible-light efficient photocatalysts since the adsorbed organic pigment molecules are responsible for absorbing the visible light [1,2,3]
Red cabbage anthocyanin inserted TiO2 aerogel nanocomposites: Red cabbage anthocyanin inserted TiO2 aerogel nanocomposites were synthesized with a process modified from References [13,16]
In compared with AG, no other diffraction appeared and the peaks did not shift in S-AG and TiO2 aerogel templated by red cabbage anthocyanin, meaning that the addition of RCP would not change the anatase phase of TiO2 aerogel [30]
Summary
Photosensitization of TiO2 nanocomposite by organic pigments is a convenient way to develop visible-light efficient photocatalysts since the adsorbed organic pigment molecules are responsible for absorbing the visible light [1,2,3]. Red cabbage anthocyanin (RCP) has been used as a sensitizer in TiO2 dye-sensitized solar cells [11]. These pigments attached to the TiO2 are not thermally or photochemically stable since they are still the same as the original ones. We have successfully used commercial synthetic dyes to synthesize mesoporous TiO2 nanocomposites with good visible-light photocatalytic activity [12,13,14]. In this framework, it is worthwhile to explore stable natural vegetable pigment inspired TiO2 nanocomposites with great visible-light photocatalytic activity
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