Visible-light active conducting polymer nanostructures with superior photocatalytic activity
Résumé
The development of visible-light responsive photocatalysts would permit more efficient use of
solar energy, and thus would bring sustainable solutions to many environmental issues. Conductive
polymers appear as a new class of very active photocatalysts under visible light. Among them poly(3,4-
ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) is one of the most promising conjugated polymer with a wide
range of applications. PEDOT nanostructures synthesized in soft templates via chemical oxidative
polymerization demonstrate unprecedented photocatalytic activities for water treatment without
the assistance of sacrificial reagents or noble metal co-catalysts and turn out to be better than TiO2
as benchmark catalyst. The PEDOT nanostructures exhibit a narrow band gap (E = 1.69 eV) and are
characterized by excellent ability to absorb light in visible and near infrared region. The novel PEDOTbased
photocatalysts are very stable with cycling and can be reused without appreciable loss of activity.
Interestingly, hollow micrometric vesicular structures of PEDOT are not effective photocatalysts as
compared to nanometric spindles suggesting size and shape dependent photocatalytic properties.
The visible-light active photocatalytic properties of the polymer nanostructures present promising
applications in solar light harvesting and broader fields.
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