Development of efficiency improved polymer-modified TiO2 for the photocatalytic degradation of an organic dye from wastewater environment

Abstract

In this study, the photocatalytic activity of polypyrrole-TiO2 nanocomposite was studied experimentally for the degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye under simulating solar light irradiation. To improve the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 under sunlight irradiation, conducting polymers such as polypyrrole (PPy) and its derivatives are generally used as photosensitizers. The PPy-TiO2 nanocomposite was prepared by the chemical oxidative polymerization method. The prepared nanocomposite showed better photocatalytic activity than bare TiO2 under sunlight irradiation for the degradation of MB dye. The prepared nanocomposite was subjected to characterization techniques such as SEM-EDAX, FT-IR, UV-DRS, XRD, TGA and PL spectral analysis. Different influencing operating parameters like initial concentration of dye, irradiation time, pH and amount of PPy-TiO2 nanocomposite used have also been studied. The optical density of the dye degradation was measured by UV–Visible spectrophotometer. The repeatability of photocatalytic activity was also tested. A plausible mechanism was proposed and discussed on the basis of experimental results.