Highly Efficient Photocatalytic Degradation of Amido Black 10B Dye Using Polycarbazole-Decorated TiO(2) Nanohybrids

[Image: see text] The present study reports the synthesis of polycarbazole (PCz)-decorated TiO(2) nanohybrids via in situ chemical polymerization of carbazole monomers in TiO(2) dispersions. The ratio of the polymer in the nanohybrid varied between 0.5 and 2 wt %. The synthesized nanohybrids were characterized using infrared and diffuse reflectance spectroscopies, whereas the morphology was analyzed using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) techniques. XRD revealed changes in the peak corresponding to the d(001) plane of TiO(2) owing to the interaction between the two components. TEM confirmed the formation of PCz-decorated nanohybrids. Amido Black 10B (AB-10B) was chosen as a model dye for the degradation studies. Sonophotocatalytic degradation of the dye was studied by varying the catalyst and dye concentrations. Results showed that PCz/TiO(2) nanohybrids exhibited a complete degradation of AB-10B dye within a short span of 60–90 min, which was faster than pure TiO(2) and the reported decorated TiO(2) nanohybrids synthesized by other authors. The degraded dye fragments were identified using liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LCMS). By varying the loading of PCz in TiO(2), the nanohybrids could be tuned to achieve visible light-driven degradation.