Photocatalytic Degradation of Methylene Blue Using Porphyrin/TiO2 Complexes Activated by Visible Light

The use of TiO2 as photocatalyst to degrade the organic compounds is an effective method of oxidation process and has been widely studied in environmental engineering. However, TiO2 absorbed the UV light which is only small part of sunlight reaching earth surface to activate photocatalytic procedure is a major disadvantage. Therefore, studies on the development of new TiO2 that its photocatalytic activity can be activated by visible light which is the major part of sunlight will be valuable for field application. In this study, we evaluate the photocatalytic degrading efficiency of porphyrins/TiO2 complexes on the organic pollutants under irradiation with visible light (λ= 419 nm). The results showed that the photodecomposition efficiency of methylene blue were up to 95% and 90% respectively after using NiTPP/TiO2 and ZnTPP/TiO2 irradiated with visible light for 6 h. These evidences reveal that the system of porphyrin/TiO2 complexes has significantly high efficiency of photocatalytic degradation under visible light irradiation.