Chemically modified amino porphyrin/TiO 2 for the degradation of Acid Black 1 under day light illumination.

In this paper, for the first time, chemically modified 5,10,15,20-meso-tetra-(para-amino)-phenyl-porphyrin/TiO2 (TPAPP/TiO2 ) was prepared and used for the degradation of an azo dye Acid Black 1 (AB 1) under direct sunlight. Initially, TiO2 was prepared by sol-gel method. Before making a TPAPP/TiO2 composite, the surface modification of TiO2 was carried out with glycidoxypropyltrimethoxy silane (GPTMS) which acts as a coupling agent. This is an epoxy terminated silane and could easily bond to the amino group of TPAPP through epoxy cleavage. The formation of TPAPP/TiO2 was confirmed by different characterization techniques such as FT-IR, XRD, SEM and DRS. The photocatalytic activity of TiO2 was highly influenced by TPAPP. A mechanism was proposed for AB 1 degradation by TPAPP/TiO2 under sun light.