Photo-degradation of curcumin in the presence of TiO2 nanoparticles: Fundamentals and application

✍ Scribed by Umang Singh; Sandeep Verma; H.N. Ghosh; M.C. Rath; K.I. Priyadarsini; A. Sharma; K.K. Pushpa; S.K. Sarkar; T. Mukherjee

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 812 KB
• Volume: 318
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1381-1169
• DOI: 10.1016/j.molcata.2009.11.018

✦ Synopsis

Photo-degradation of curcumin in the presence of TiO 2 nanoparticles has been studied in water-methanol and water-acetonitrile mixed solvents. Curcumin was found to form charge transfer (CT) complexes with TiO 2 nanoparticles. The binding constant of the CT complexes has been determined. Curcumin was found to undergo photo-degradation under UV-vis and only visible light irradiations. Photo-degradation was investigated in the presence of external electron quenchers like methyl violegen and dissolved oxygen and hole quenchers like iodide ions in a de-aerated condition. The presence of oxygen was found to enhance the photo-degradation processes. The photo-degradation was found to be completely quenched in the presence of iodide ions in both the solvent mixtures in a de-aerated condition. A reaction pathway for the photo-degradation of curcumin in the presence of TiO 2 nanoparticles has been proposed. This study has been successfully applied to remove the yellow turmeric stain from cotton fabrics.