Bioinspired C/TiO₂ photocatalyst for rhodamine B degradation under visible light irradiation

Abstract

Papilio paris butterfly wings were replicated by a sol-gel method and a calcination process, which could take advantage of the spatial features of the wing to enhance their photocatalytic properties. Hierarchical structures of P. paris-carbon-TiO2 (PP-C-TiO2) were confirmed by SEM observations. By applying the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller method, it was concluded that in the presence of wings the product shows higher surface area with respect to the pure TiO2 made in the absence of the wings. The higher specific surface area is also beneficial for the improvement of photocatalytic property. Furthermore, the conduction and valence bands of the PP-C-TiO2 are more negative than the corresponding bands of pure TiO2, allowing the electrons to migrate from the valence band to the conduction band upon absorbing visible light. That is, the presence of C originating from wings in the PP-C-TiO2 could extend the photoresponsiveness to visible light. This strategy provides a simple method to fabricate a high-performance photocatalyst, which enables the simultaneous control of the morphology and carbon element doping.

Keywords

• bioinspired|butterfly wings|C/TiO₂|photocatalyst|visible light