Abstract

Hybrid nanocomposites consisting of inorganic component and organic conducting polymer are promising materials, which can be applied in heterogeneous photocatalysis. Titanium(IV) oxide is widely used photocatalysts due to its non-toxicity, low cost and chemical stability. The main disadvantage of TiO2 is low photocatalytic activity under visible light. Conducting polymers, also known as conjugated polymers are polymer materials with highly -conjugated polymeric chains. Recently, the conjugated polymers have attracted much attention due to excellent chemical and environmental stability, high mobility, easy preparation, economic efficiency and good electrical conductivity [1,2]. In the photocatalytic reaction, the conjugated polymer present in the composite photocatalyst acts as an effective photosensitizer that can significantly improves the separation efficiency of photoexcited electron-hole pairs. Therefore, this new class of hybrid materials characterized by a backbone chain of alternating double- and single-bonds hold a great promise for photocatalysis by combining the advantages from both the conjugated polymer and inorganic semiconductor, which prevent fast charge recombination and allow to absorb visible light. In this regard, the aim of present study was preparation and characterization heterojunction of TiO2 with polyaniline (PANI), which allow to achieve high-performance photocatalysts for decomposition of organic contaminants in aqueous phase. Moreover, to solve the problem with separation of nanosized TiO2 we propose functionalization TiO2-PANI nanoparticles with CoFe2O4 spinel ferrite particles with high saturation magnetization [3]. CoFe2O4/TiO2 was prepared in water-TX100-cyclohexane microemulsion and functionalized with polyaniline by oxidative polymerization method. Obtained hybrid materials were characterized by X-ray diffractometry (XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmision electron microscopy (TEM), fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), dynamic light scattering (DLS) particle size distribution analysis, specific surface area (BET) measurements, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) analysis.

Authors (3)