Molecular imprinting produces high photoelectric effect facilitating the efficient photocatalytic degradation of salicylic acid by TiO2

作者：Liu, Xian; Xu, Chengxiang; Zhu, Lei; Wang, Xun^*

来源：Reaction Kinetics Mechanisms and Catalysis, 2022, 135(1): 529-537.

DOI：10.1007/s11144-021-02132-3

• Molecularly imprinted TiO2
• Photocatalytic performance
• Salicylic acid

It has been partially shown that salicylic acid (SA) as an imprinting molecule can produce better photocatalytic effect, while the contribution of SA as a molecular imprinting and degradation substrate is not clear. Herein, SA-TiO2 was prepared by a one-step molecular imprinting method using SA as the imprinting molecule and tetra-n-butyl titanate as the precursor, which was analyzed by XRD, UV-Vis, SEM, TEM-EDS, XPS, PL, FT-IR, EIS, and photocurrent response. The results shown that 1.5SA-TiO2 had the best electrochemical properties and therefore the best photoelectric effect. Moreover, the decolorization rates of SA within 30 min were 49.25% and 62.69% for TiO2 and SA-TiO2, respectively, indicating that the synthesized SA-TiO2 had better photocatalytic performance and could be applied in future scenarios for the efficient degradation of SA wastewater.