Synthesis, spectroscopic characterization and photocatalytic properties of corrole modified GPTMS/TiO2 nanoparticles

Abstract

A new organic-inorganic TNPC-GPTMS/TiO2 photocatalyst was achieved by 5,10,15-tris-(4-aminophenyl)corrole (TNPC) chemically grafted onto the surface of glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GPTMS) modified TiO2 (GPTMS/TiO2). The prepared photocatalyst was fully characterized by various spectroscopic (DRS, Raman and FT-IR) and electron microscopic (TEM and SEM) investigations confirming the chemical formation of the target photocatalyst. The photocatalytic property of TNPC-GPTMS/TiO2 towards the photocatalytic degradation of di-anionic azo dye Acid Black 1 (AB1) was comparatively assessed with the pure TiO2 and GPTMS/TiO2 under visible light irradiation. The results revealed that the TNPC-GPTMS/TiO2 photocatalyst showed much higher photodegradation efficiency than pure TiO2 and GPTMS/TiO2, and importantly 0.004 wt% TNPC-GPTMS/TiO2 shows the highest photocatalytic active under the same condition. In addition, the repetition test demonstrated that the TNPC-GPTMS/TiO2 still maintained high photocatalytic activity over three recycles. Finally, the photocatalytic mechanism was proposed.