Mechanistic insight of dye degradation using TiO2 anchored α-MnO2 nanorods as promising sunlight driven photocatalyst

Abstract Sunlight driven heterostructured photocatalysts have attracted remarkable attention for the degradation of organic pollutants, including toxic dyes. In present study, the synthesis of TiO2 NPs anchored α-MnO2 nanorods based catalyst has been reported for the degradation of CBB R-250, a widely used textile dye. The FE-SEM analysis showed the rod-like structure of α-MnO2, uniformly decorated with TiO2 NPs, further confirmed by EDX. The XPS revealed the binding energy and oxidation states of prepared photocatalyst. Designed photocatalyst efficiently degraded (98.35%) dye after 30 min sunlight irradiation. The narrow bandgap (2.8 eV) of the designed photocatalyst was one of the key factors for enhanced photocatalytic activity. CBB degradation reaction followed pseudo-first order kinetics with maximum removal efficiency of > 85%. The ESI-MS2 mass spectra has further validated the dye mineralization. The biosafety of designed catalyst was checked in HEK293T cells with IC50 = 160.7, which is considered as benign to human and their environment.