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Synthesis and Characterization of Polypyrrole/TiO2 Composites as a Photocatalyst

The great advantage of conductive polymers is that their chemical, physical and optical properties can be adjusted according to the demand of application. In this study the structure of conductive polymer polypyrrole (PPy) was studied during the chemical synthesis. It is of great importance to explore the appropriate structure of polypyrrole that can induce activation of TiO2 photocatalysts since the synthesis of organic/inorganic hybrid materials can result in a synergistic and complementary feature, increasing TiO2 photocatalytic efficiency. As conductive polymers are also photosensitive they can be activated by light absorption, which starts the transition of electrons from a conductive polymer by injection in the conductive band of TiO2. However, despite intensive research, the relationship between structure and conductivity is still not completely understood. It is assumed that the conductivity increases with a higher degree of crystallinity but this is not confirmed for all conducting polymers, only for some of them. In this paper different conditions of synthesis of pure polypyrrole and polypyrrole titanium dioxide (PPy-TiO2) composite were studied. Samples of polypyrrole, TiO2 and polypyrrole/TiO2 composites were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and cyclic voltammetry (CV). The results show that due to the changes in the fraction of oxidant during the synthesis of PPy its structure was changed, and thus the conductivity.

polypyrrole ; titanium dioxide ; composite ; photocatalyst

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