Highly Efficient Photocatalytic Degradation of Amido Black 10B Dye Using Polycarbazole-Decorated TiO₂ Nanohybrids

The present study reports the synthesis of polycarbazole (PCz)-decorated TiO₂ nanohybrids via in situ chemical polymerization of carbazole monomers in TiO₂ dispersions. The ratio of the polymer in the nanohybrid varied between 0.5 and 2 wt %. The synthesized nanohybrids were characterized using infrared and diffuse reflectance spectroscopies, whereas the morphology was analyzed using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques. XRD revealed changes in the peak corresponding to the d(001) plane of TiO₂ owing to the interaction between the two components. TEM confirmed the formation of PCz-decorated nanohybrids. Amido Black 10B (AB-10B) was chosen as a model dye for the degradation studies. Sonophotocatalytic degradation of the dye was studied by varying the catalyst and dye concentrations. Results showed that PCz/TiO₂ nanohybrids exhibited a complete degradation of AB-10B dye within a short span of 60-90 min, which was faster than pure TiO₂ and the reported decorated TiO₂ nanohybrids synthesized by other authors. The degraded dye fragments were identified using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LCMS). By varying the loading of PCz in TiO₂, the nanohybrids could be tuned to achieve visible light-driven degradation.