PHOTOMAT

"TUNABLE MATERIALS: PREPARATION, CHARACTERIZATION AND INVESTIGATION OF PHOTOCATALYTIC ACTIVITY OF NEW HIBRID MATERIALS"

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'This project aims at developing new materials with tunable properties, conjugating good mechanical properties and photocatalytic activity. New and advanced materials will be synthesized on purpose, characterized and their efficiency as photocatalysts in abating pollutants such as pesticides and emerging pollutants will be evaluated. In the first stage, inorganic materials (TiO2, CNTs, graphene oxide) will be prepared and tested both in dispersed phase or added into a polymeric coating. For such aim, doped semiconductor oxides and carbon nanotubes (alone or combined with oxides) will be synthesized and tested. We also plan to conduct a detailed study of the charge transfer processes in the hetero-junctions to evaluate the factors providing the best performance of the hybrid materials. In addition, the efficiency of surface photochemical processes will be estimated in terms of the quantum yield of surface chemical transformation. In the second stage, preparation and characterization of new UV-cured polymeric materials containing at the same time CNTs or graphene and semiconductor oxides will be carried out, with the aim of exploring the synergistic/antagonist effect of the fillers in the photodegradative process followed by pollutants. For both stages, we plan on investigating the semiconductor properties of the inorganic material and its efficiency in the abatement of pollutants both when the catalyst is dispersed in water or when the target molecule is adsorbed on a polymeric film containing the catalyst dispersed into the network. The polymeric films will be employed for the degradation of pollutants in water or gas phases. In all cases, we will evaluate the initial degradation of the molecule, identify the transformation products and measure the toxicity of the system. Five multidisciplinary groups from Italy (University and Politecnico of Torino), Russia (University of Saint Petersburg), Spain (University of Madrid) and Canada (McGill University) are involved'

Introduzione (Teaser)

EU-funded scientists are exploring possible environmental applications of new hybrid materials.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

The EU-funded http://e20.unito.it/Photomat/ (PHOTOMAT) project aims to develop new materials with tunable properties, combining good mechanical properties and photocatalytic activity. Advanced materials are synthesised, characterised and evaluated for their photocatalytic efficiency in abating pollutants such as pesticides.

Scientists have already developed high-quality carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) for producing polymer nanocomposites. CNPs include carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and functionalised graphene sheets. CNTs have been grown using chemical vapour deposition, whereas functionalised graphene sheets have been synthesised by the rapid thermal expansion of graphite oxide. The latter has been synthesised from natural graphite flakes. The materials were then surface modified using controlled oxidation and diazonium chemistry.

The surface modification allowed the researchers to control the synthesis of TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) in situ on graphene sheets. They showed that by changing surface functional groups they could synthesise NPs with different morphology and exposing different facets to the environment. This enabled the control of photocatalytic efficiency of the resulting hybrid materials.

Another task has been to prepare semiconductor oxides and dope them with non-metal elements. Different techniques were used to obtain materials with different morphology and high surface area.

Scientists have detected the presence of surface and bulk defects both in the pure and doped samples and evaluated their reactivity. Furthermore, measuring the spectral dependence of the synthesised materials revealed the effect of doping on photoexcitation and quantum yield.

Finally scientists combined CNTs, functionalised graphene and the semiconductor NPs in UV-cured polymeric films. Besides using them to reduce pollutants, these new hybrid materials are a good substrate for a multi-analyte homogeneous immunoassay.

Future research will include different synthetic approaches to obtain more efficient photocatalysts, and the use of graphene-based materials as pollutant adsorbents.