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Highly Efficient Red Cabbage Anthocyanin Inserted TiO₂ Aerogel Nanocomposites for Photocatalytic Reduction of Cr(VI)
Haiyan Yang1, Liang Jiang2, Yizhou Li3
1National Center for International Research on Photoelectric and Energy Materials, Yunnan Provincial Collaborative Innovation Center of Green Chemistry for Lignite Energy, Yunnan Province Engineering Research Center of Photocatalytic Treatment of Industrial Wastewater, The Universities' Center for Photocatalytic Treatment of Pollutants in Yunnan Province, School of Chemical Sciences & Technology, Yunnan University, Kunming 650091, China. haiyan2013new@163.com.
Abstract:
In sharp contrast to conventional photosensitization methods in which the organic pigments were often adsorbed, herein we present a study on natural vegetable pigment inserted TiO₂ aerogel nanocomposites and we directly use red cabbage anthocyanin (RCP) as a structure-directing agent. It was found that pure TiO₂ aerogel nanocomposite did not exhibit any meaningful activity for photocatalytic reduction of Cr(VI). However, the photocatalytic reduction activity was greatly improved by the RCP inserted TiO₂ aerogel nanocomposites under visible-light irradiation, which was approximately 2- and 12.3-fold higher than that of TiO₂ aerogel conventionally photosensitized by RCP and pure TiO₂ aerogel nanocomposites, respectively. It also exhibited good stability and could be reused at least three times without losing a significant amount of its activity.
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