Fabrication of a Graphene@TiO2@Porphyrin hybrid material and its photocatalytic properties under simulated sunlight irradiation

The fabrication of a nanostructured graphene@TiO2@porphyrin composite was achieved via surfactant-assisted self-assembly. The obtained nanostructures were fully characterized by UV-vis, fluorescence emission spectroscopy, SEM, XRD and FTIR techniques. The graphene@TiO2@porphyrin composite reveals good incorporation of TiO2 particles with a diameter of 15-30 nm, and aggregated porphyrin nanorods with 50-60 nm width and several hundreds of nanometers in length on the graphene surface. The applications of three components (graphene@TiO2@porphyrin) based nanostructure in photocatalytic pollutant degradation Rhodamine B is reported, where TiO2 and porphyrin aggregates are shown to be activated for UV and visible light respectively, resulting in a high performing composite. The possible photocatalytic mechanism of RhB degradation by graphene@TiO2@porphyrins composite is discussed.