Advanced construction of heterostructured InCrO4–TiO2 and its dual properties of greater UV-photocatalytic and antibacterial activity

Abstract

The development of coupled semiconductor oxides has led to significant advances in photocatalytic functional materials. In this article, we report the preparation of a nano-spherical InCrO₄-loaded TiO₂ photocatalyst by a simple co-precipitation method. The InCrO₄–TiO₂ (ICT) nanomaterial was characterized using XRD, SEM with EDX, FT-IR, FT-Raman and PL analysis. The photocatalytic activity of InCrO₄–TiO₂ was much better than that of TiO₂ and TiO₂–P25 under UV-light irradiation. InCrO₄–TiO₂ showed better activity than TiO₂ and TiO₂–P25 in the degradation of methyl green (MEG), malachite green (MAG) and methylene blue (MB) because it has maximum efficiency at neutral pH = 7 under UV-light irradiation. Among all these dyes, the photodegradation of MEG was the fastest. The mechanism for the photocatalytic activity of the InCrO₄-loaded TiO₂ nanomaterial has been discussed. The production of hydroxyl radicals on the surface of UV-irradiated photocatalysts was determined by fluorescence technique using coumarin as a probe molecule. The photodegradation of dyes is well described by pseudo first order kinetics and high quantum yield. Furthermore, the antibacterial activity of the TiO₂ and InCrO₄–TiO₂ materials was investigated against Gram negative Vibrio cholerae and Gram positive Bacillus subtilis bacterial strains.