The role of solvent on the formulation of graphene/polyporphyrin hybrid material versus photocatalytic activity

The influence of solvent used to prepare hybrid materials for photocatalytic applications formulated by cyclic bisphenol A/porphyrin copolyformal and graphene is here reported. To this purpose, the polymer is dissolved in different solvents [chloroform, tetrahydrofuran and dimethylformamide (DMF)] and used to impregnate via bath deposition 2D graphene. Depending on the nature of the solvent, polymer coats differently the graphene substrates producing peculiar SEM and AFM data. Microscopic and nanoscopic features of formulated materials were correlated with their photocatalytic activities by using methylene blue degradation test. Data collected under visible-light irradiation reveal as the best photodegradation performance was displayed by graphene coated with DMF copolyporphyrin solution. Graphic abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.].