Porous immobilized C coated N doped TiO2 containing in-situ generated polyenes for enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity

• Porous immobilized C,N-P25TiO2 has been successfully fabricated.
• Polyenes were generated in-situ from PVC binder and proven via FTIR.
• Enhanced photocatalytic activity was due to the polyenes acting as photosensitizers.
• Immobilized system performed better than the suspended system under visible light irradiation.
• Immobilized system has excellent reusability with sustained photocatalytic activity.

Carbon coated nitrogen-doped Degussa P25TiO2 (or C,N-P25TiO2) was successfully immobilized on a glass plate using epoxidized natural rubber (ENR-50) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) as the organic binders. Photo-etching of the fabricated system for 10 h oxidized its PVC binder into polyenes as well as forming a highly porous surface. The band gap energy (Eg) of the photo-etched immobilized photocatalyst system (C,N-P25TiO2/ENR/PVC-10 h) was reduced from 2.91 to 2.86 eV. Its photocatalytic activity was studied via photocatalytic degradation of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) under a 45 W visible light fluorescent lamp. C,N-P25TiO2/ENR/PVC-10 h with polyenes performed better than its slurry counterpart under visible light irradiation where the conjugated double bonds acted as photo sensitizers. The immobilized C,N-P25TiO2/ENR/PVC-10 h has excellent reusability and sustainable with an average k value of 0.056 ± 0.011 min−1 and average percent removal of 99.18 ± 0.54%.

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