Photoelectrocatalytic activity of highly ordered TiO2 nanotube arrays modified with polyaniline for tetrabromobisphenol A degradation in water

Danchen Zhao; Liushan Jiang; Ruochen Yang; Yue Zhang; Qingxiang Zhou

doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.134928

Photoelectrocatalytic activity of highly ordered TiO₂ nanotube arrays modified with polyaniline for tetrabromobisphenol A degradation in water

Chemosphere. 2022 Sep:302:134928. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.134928. Epub 2022 May 10.

Authors

Danchen Zhao¹, Liushan Jiang¹, Ruochen Yang¹, Yue Zhang¹, Qingxiang Zhou²

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, College of Chemical Engineering and Environment, China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Beijing 102249, China.
² State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Processing, College of Chemical Engineering and Environment, China University of Petroleum-Beijing, Beijing 102249, China. Electronic address: zhouqx@cup.edu.cn.

PMID: 35561760
DOI: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.134928

Abstract

Polyaniline (PANI) is a useful conductive polymer material, and has good adsorption property, which makes it a good modification material. In this work, for the sake of highly enhancing the utilization of visible region in sunlight and accelerating photocatalytic degradation of tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBPA), a typical polybrominated flame retardant, titanium dioxide nanotube arrays (TiO₂ NTAs) were modified with PANI by chemical and electrochemical polymerization. The coated amount of PANI was controlled via adjusting the polymerization time and the amount of aniline in the electrochemical method. The results demonstrate that the EC-PANI/TiO₂ NTAs (synthesized electrochemically) exhibit higher catalytic activity than bare TiO₂ NTAs and C-PANI/TiO₂ NTAs (synthesized chemically) in photoelectrocatalytic degradation of TBBPA under visible light, and the degradation efficiency for TBBPA could reach 94.37% within 120 min. The improved performance was contributed to the synergetic effect of PANI modification which integrated the broad absorption of PANI in visible light region and high catalytic property of TiO₂ NTAs. Interestingly, it was also found that the degradation efficiency of TBBPA by EC-PANI/TiO₂ was further enhanced by up to 95.74% when the ethanol was present in the reaction system as the hole scavenger. Furthermore, the EC-PANI/TiO₂ exhibited excellent stability after 10 cycling experiments. All the results indicated that this new modified material presented strong potential as a photoelectrocatalyst and had great practical applications in the future.

Keywords: Functional modification; Photoelectrocatalysis; Pollutant degradation; Synergistic effect.