Photo-Induced Charge Generation of TiO₂ Nanotube Modified with Polymer Containing C₆₀ under Irradiation of Visible Light and its Applications

Abstract

Due to its excellent physical properties and inert chemical reaction activity of C60, it is possible to synthesize solution-processing polymer containing C60 utilizing the inclusive characteristics of polymer chain segment, and then to prepare organic/inorganic nanocomposites with enhanced some key properties. In order to harvest the visible light of TiO2 effectively the surface modification of TiO2 nanotube with polymer containing C60 was carried out in this study. A series of characterizations were performed by SEM (scanning electron microscopy), TEM (transmission electron microscopy), Fourier-Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectra, UV-Vis (Ultra-violet visible spectroscopy), XRD patterns analysis. The results showed that the UV-Vis of resulting nanocomposite was almost covered the whole region of visible light. The photoconductivity response to visible light with low-power were studied based on interdigital electrodes of Au on flexible PET (polyethylene terephthalate) film substrate with casting method. The results indicated that the photoresponses of two kinds of polymer containing C60 to weak visible light emerged photo-switching behavior, its recoverability was also rapidly, and the photoresponse of TiO2 nanotube modified with two kinds of polymer containing C60 to weak visible light also changed greatly. This illustrated that the organic-inorganic nanocomposites showed good activities to weak visible light. Photocatalytic efficiency was examined by selecting typical organic pollutants, some good results were obtained. It may develop organic-inorganic nanocomposites with external stimuli response, photocatalyst, et al.