Molecular Crystals and Liquid Crystals, Vol.642, No.1, 106-114, 2017
Polymer dye-containing nanocomposites as photocatalysts
A significant improvement of photocatalytic efficiency is achieved by the synthesis of TiO2/SiO2 nanocomposites where silica matrix provides the transport of reagents to TiO2 nanoparticles via porous structure, generation of the new active sites and thermal stability. The semiconductive films contained 10 or 30% of TiO2 in silica matrix are synthesized by sol-gel method using concentrated anatase titania colloid. The complex composites consisted of i) the Acridine Yellow dye molecules and the polyepoxypropyl carbazole; ii) the azobenzene containing polymer covered onto the titania/silica films are obtained as photocatalytic materials. Photocatalytic activity of the composites is tested via the reduction of dichromate ions.