Enhancement of visible-light photoactivity by polypropylene coated plasmonic Au/TiO2 for dye degradation in water solution

• Published in: Applied surface science Vol. 441; pp. 575 - 587
• Main Authors: D'Amato, C.A., Giovannetti, R., Zannotti, M., Rommozzi, E., Ferraro, S., Seghetti, C., Minicucci, M., Gunnella, R., Di Cicco, A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier B.V 31-05-2018
• Subjects: Alizarin Red S; Band gap energy; Gold nanoparticles; Heterogeneous photocatalysis; TiO2; Band gap energy; Alizarin Red S; Gold nanoparticles; Heterogeneous photocatalysis; TiO2
• ISSN: 0169-4332; 1873-5584
• DOI: 10.1016/j.apsusc.2018.01.290

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•Modification of heterogeneous photocatalytic material with gold nanoparticles.•Acetylacetone as reducing agent for the growth of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs).•Samples with different wt.% of Au were tested and structurally characterized.•The new Au-TiO2 material showed a lowering of band gap energy.•Photocatalytic kinetic constant for Alizarin Red S degradation was improved.
A new approach to obtain a heterogeneous photocatalytic material with gold nanoparticles and TiO2 semiconductor was performed exploiting the reducing ability of acetylacetone, a chemical present in the TiO2 paste formulation. Gold/TiO2 heterogeneous catalyst supported on polypropylene [PP@Au-TiO2]A was prepared; composition, structure and morphology of this new material were defined by using UV–Vis spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), X-ray Fluorescence (XRF), Raman Spectroscopy, Photoluminescence and Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy. The new material was tested in the photocatalytic degradation of Alizarin Red S in water solution, as target pollutant, under visible light and correlated with structural and spectroscopic characterizations. [PP@Au-TiO2]A showed higher photocatalytic activity respect to pure [PP@TiO2]A with an improvement of photodegradation kinetic. The best performance was obtained using [PP@Au-TiO2]A sample with 0.006 wt.% of Au and the photocatalytic improvement was correlated with the band gap energy decrease of photocatalyst.