Abstract
Conductive polymers have been widely investigated in various applications. Several conductive polymers, such as polyaniline (PANI), polypyrrole (PPy), poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT)), and polythiophene (PTh) have been loaded with various semiconductor nanomaterials to prepare the composite photocatalysts. However, a critical review of conductive polymer-based composite photocatalysts has not been available yet. Therefore, in this review, we summarized the applications of conductive polymers in the preparation of composite photocatalysts for photocatalytic degradation of hazardous chemicals, antibacterial, and photocatalytic hydrogen production. Various materials were systematically surveyed to illustrate their preparation methods, morphologies, and photocatalytic performances. The synergic effect between conductive polymers and semiconductor nanomaterials were observed for a lot of composite photocatalysts. The band structures of the composite photocatalysts can be analyzed to explain the mechanism of their enhanced photocatalytic activity. The incorporation of conductive polymers can result in significantly improved visible-light driven photocatalytic activity by enhancing the separation of photoexcited charge carriers, extending the light absorption range, increasing the adsorption of reactants, inhibiting photo-corrosion, and reducing the formation of large aggregates. This review provides a systematic concept about how conductive polymers can improve the performance of composite photocatalysts.
Highlights
Nowadays, organic pollutants have caused serious water pollution problems
This review demonstrated that conductive polymers are useful to improve the performance of composite photocatalysts for photocatalytic degradation of hazardous chemicals, antibacterial, and photocatalytic hydrogen production applications, focusing on the roles of conductive polymers
The loading of conductive polymers with semiconductor photocatalysts leads to a synergistic effect between conductive polymers and semiconductor nanomaterials, leading to high photocatalytic degradation efficiency
Summary
Prior studies show that the photocatalytic degradation process using semiconductor photocatalysts is one of the efficient and green solutions to resolve these problems. The composite photocatalysts photocurrent generation [12], supercapacitors and diodes light emitting [14,15,16]. Sincecan conductive matched band structures with other they semiconductors, can reduce the recombination of polymers can provide matched band inorganic structuressemiconductors, with other inorganic they can reduce photogenerated electron-hole pairs forelectron-hole these composite photocatalysts. Review, compositions, the recombination of photogenerated pairs for these composite In this preparation methods,preparation testing conditions, mechanism, and improvement in photocatalytic review, compositions, methods,possible testing conditions, possible mechanism, and improvement efficiency of conductive polymers based composite photocatalysts were studied.
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