Heterogeneous UV-Switchable Au nanoparticles decorated tungstophosphoric acid/TiO for efficient photocatalytic degradation process.

In the present study, gold nanoparticles were locally well-decorated on the surface of TiO using the tungstophosphoric acid (HPW), as UV-switchable reducing intermediate linkers. The prepared Au NPs/HPW/TiO nanostructure was characterized using FTIR, XRD, EDS, SEM and TEM, which confirmed the successful attachment of quasi-spherical Au NPs in the range of 20-30 nm on the surface of HPW modified TiO. Also, the FTIR results show that the Au NPs were binded to TiO through the terminal the oxygen atoms HPW. The photocatalytic performance of prepared nanostructures was assessed in degradation of nitrobenzene. The nitrobenzene photodegradation kinetic study revealed that it well followed the Langmuir-Hinshelwood kinetic model with the apparent rate constant of 0.001 min using anatase TiO, 0.0004 min using HPW, 0.0014 using HPW/TiO, while it was obtained 0.0065 min using Au NPs@HPW/TiO nanostructure. It shows that the photocatalytic rate of the prepared nanocomposites increased by 6.5- and 4.6-fold compared to photoactivity of anatase TiO and HPW/TiO respectively. Also, the photocatalytic mechanism of process was proposed. Moreover, the reusability study confirmed that its photocatalytic activity still remained high after three cycles.