Tuning the Supramolecular Structures of Metal-Free Porphyrin via Surfactant Assisted Self-Assembly to Enhance Photocatalytic Performance

Jinrong Lu; Zihan Li; Weijia An; Li Liu; Wenquan Cui

doi:10.3390/nano9091321

Tuning the Supramolecular Structures of Metal-Free Porphyrin via Surfactant Assisted Self-Assembly to Enhance Photocatalytic Performance

Nanomaterials (Basel). 2019 Sep 15;9(9):1321. doi: 10.3390/nano9091321.

Authors

Jinrong Lu¹, Zihan Li², Weijia An³, Li Liu⁴, Wenquan Cui⁵

Affiliations

¹ College of Chemical Engineering, Hebei Key Laboratory for Environment Photocatalytic and Electrocatalytic Materials, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan 063210, China. lujinrong@ncst.edu.cn.
² College of Chemical Engineering, Hebei Key Laboratory for Environment Photocatalytic and Electrocatalytic Materials, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan 063210, China. zihan0unicorn@163.com.
³ College of Chemical Engineering, Hebei Key Laboratory for Environment Photocatalytic and Electrocatalytic Materials, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan 063210, China. anweijia@ncst.edu.cn.
⁴ College of Chemical Engineering, Hebei Key Laboratory for Environment Photocatalytic and Electrocatalytic Materials, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan 063210, China. chemll@126.com.
⁵ College of Chemical Engineering, Hebei Key Laboratory for Environment Photocatalytic and Electrocatalytic Materials, North China University of Science and Technology, Tangshan 063210, China. wqcui@ncst.edu.cn.

Abstract

Metal-free porphyrin with good planarity is beneficial to π-π stack interactions, which promotes electron coupling and the separation and transfer of photogenerated carriers. It is necessary to develop metal-free porphyrin-based photocatalysts and exploit the photocatalytic mechanism. Herein, metal-free porphyrin (5,10,15,20-tetrakis(4-carboxyphenyl)porphyrin, TCPP) was self-assembled through an acid-based neutralization reaction and mixing dual-solvents under surfactants to form different aggregates. Morphology structures, optical and optoelectronic properties of the TCPP aggregates were characterized in detail. TCPP self-assemblies showed higher photocatalytic activities for the degradation of phenol under visible light than untreated TCPP powders, and the aggregates of nanorods formed through the acid-based neutralization reaction in the presence of hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) possessed 2.6 times more activity than the nanofiber aggregates formed through mixing dual-solvents. It was proved that self-assembly methods are crucial for controlling the aggregation of porphyrins to form different aggregations, which have a profound impact on the photocatalytic activity.

Keywords: aggregation mode; metal-free porphyrin; photocatalysis; self-assembly.