Effective harvesting of UV induced production of excitons from Fe3O4 with proficient rGO-PTh acting as BI-functional redox photocatalyst

• Published in: Renewable energy 2018-01, Vol.115, p.1035-1042
• Main Authors: Kalyani, Rajendran, Gurunathan, Karuppasamy
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Dye degradation; Fe3O4; Nanocomposite; Polythiophene; Reduced graphene oxide; Water splitting
• ISSN: 0960-1481; 1879-0682
• DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2017.09.031

We report the synthesis of PTh-rGO-Fe3O4 nanocomposite from a simple combination of graphene and polythiophene (PTh) with metal oxide for application as photocatalyst. The structure and morphology of the nanocomposite were studied by powder XRD, FTIR spectroscopy, Raman analysis, EDAX and TEM. The observed properties of the nanocomposite were fineset for the application in the field of photocatalyst. The photocatalytic effect was studied by utilizing the nanocomposite in water splitting for hydrogen production, degradation of Malachite green and shielding of Rose Bengal from UV degradation. The maximum quantum efficiency for hydrogen production obtained with 0.1% w/v of PTh-rGO-Fe3O4 photocatalyst was 11.48% with a hydrogen production rate of 178.4 μmol/h. Furthermore, the photocatalyst shows 87.9% degradation of Malachite green and acts as an effective UV shielding layer preventing 53.09% degradation of Rose Bengal. This study reveals that our nanocomposite will be a better photocatalytic material. •This paper aims in synthesizing novel nanocomposite containing reduced graphene oxide and Fe3O4 accompanied by polythiophene.•This nanocomposite in solid state was utilized as photocatalyst.•This photocatalyst shows efficient hydrogen production, dye degradation and acts as an effective UV shielding layer.