Methylene blue photocatalytic degradation under visible light irradiation on copper phthalocyanine-sensitized TiO2 nanopowders

Abstract

Described herein is a new photocatalytic material that shows remarkable catalytic performance in terms of activity and reusability in the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) in water. The new catalyst system comprised of copper phthalocyanine modified titanium(IV) oxide (TiO2) nanopowders (CuPc-TiO2) was prepared by the wet chemical impregnation method to improve the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 and characterized by the combination of various spectroscopic tools including ICP-OES, P-XRD, DR/UV–Vis, FTIR, FE-SEM, SEM-EDX, BFTEM, HRTEM and N2-adsorption-desorption techniques. The photocatalytic performance of the resulting CuPc-TiO2 in terms of activity and stability was evaluated by the photocatalytic degradation of MB in aqueous solution under mild conditions. Our results revealed that CuPc-TiO2 photocatalyst displayed remarkable activity (TOF=3.73molMB/(molCuPc+molTiO2)×h) in the complete (100%) photocatalytic degradation of MB under visible light irradiation (150W). Moreover, CuPc-TiO2 photocatalyst showed excellent stability against to sintering and clumping throughout the reusability experiments and it retained>80% of its initial activity even at 5th reuse, which makes it reusable photocatalyst in the photocatalytic degradation of MB.