Hydrothermal in situ preparation of phthalocyanine–TiO2 nanocomposites for photocatalytic activity under visible light irradiation

Abstract

In this study, phthalocyanine (Pc)–TiO2 nanocomposites were prepared via in situ hydrothermal method. The metal-free, zinc(II), cobalt(II), nickel(II) and copper(II) Pc compounds were used for formation of nanocomposites. A total of 5 different Pc–TiO2 nanocomposites was successfully prepared by hydrothermal method. The prepared nanocomposites were also characterized by FT-IR, XRD, FEG-SEM, EDX, UV-DRS and BET techniques. All prepared nanocomposites were tested for their photocatalytic activity to be used as photocatalyst. For this purpose, photocatalytic activities of Pc–TiO2 nanocomposites were evaluated for the degradation efficiency of methylene blue (MB) under visible light irradiation by monitoring the UV–Vis absorption spectra. Based on the conducted studies, it was observed that Pc–TiO2 photocatalysts have significant photocatalytic activities on degradation of MB under visible light irradiation, resulting in complete degradation of MB in 100–130 min for full degradation (100%). Furthermore, the reusability studies revealed that photocatalysts show 76% activity even after 5 uses. In this study, we prepared and characterized TiO2 nanocomposites using peripherally tetra-substituted metal-free, Zn(II), Co(II), Ni(II) and Cu(II) phthalocyanine complexes. The phthalocyanine–TiO2 nanocomposites showed significant photocatalytic activities for cleaning a common organic pollutant under the visible light irradiation.