A novel Fe(III) porphyrin-conjugated TiO2 visible-light photocatalyst

The metalloporphyrin tetra-carboxyphenylporphyrin iron(III) (FeTCPP) was synthesized and characterized spectroscopically. The corresponding FeTCPP-SSA/SA-TiO2 conjugated photocatalysts. were then prepared by surface chemical bonding with FeTCPP as sensitizer, 2-hydroxy-5-sulfosalicylic acid (SSA) or salicylic acid (SA) as bridging molecule, and Degussa P25 as raw material. The analysis of FT-IR and XPS spectra reveals that the specific organic complexes formed on the TiO2 surface are linking FeTCPP molecules to TiO2 through stable pi-conjugated chemical bonds rather than physical adsorption. The morphology and structure of the as-prepared samples were characterized by UV-visible, XRD, SEM, UV-vis DRS and BET. Methylene blue (MB), as a photocatalytic degradation target, was used to evaluate the photocatalytic performance of the prepared photocatalysts. The results show that FeTCPP-SSA-TiO2 exhibits the best photocatalytic activity among all the samples under visible light. And the new conjugated photocatalyst can be recycled 5 times, while remaining at a 90.0% MB degradation ratio. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.