Facile functionalization of cotton with nanostructured silver/titania for visible-light plasmonic photocatalysis

In the present work, a simple, reliable and cost-effective approach to functionalize cotton fabrics with Ag-TiO₂ nanoparticles strongly bound to the fibres and with visible-light-responsive photo-activity is presented. The hybrid cotton-Ag-TiO₂ fabrics were characterized by Raman, AFM, FE-SEM, TGA, XPS GSDR, and LIL to confirm the generation of metallic Ag nanoparticles and crystalline TiO₂ and investigate how the concentration of Ag and TiO₂ precursors affected the morphology and the luminescence properties of the nanostructured layer grafted on the cotton fibres. The photocatalytic activity of the cotton-Ag-TiO₂ hybrid systems was evaluated by the discoloration of Remazol Brilliant Blue R in water under a xenon lamp irradiation (sunlight simulator) equipped with selective filters. The extended photocatalytic activity to the visible is here explained by a synergistic effect of both the excitation of the Ag NPs plasmon resonance by visible light and a delayed electron-hole recombination rate caused by Ag NPs, as it can be observed by UV absorption.