| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1493804 | Optical Materials | 2015 | 9 Pages |
•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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