Bismuth porphyrin anchored reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites as fascinating photocatalyst for rhodamine B dye degradation

Abstract Herein, two porphyrins with bismuth metal incorporated in the porphyrinic core were synthesised having peripheral carboxyl and hydroxyl functional groups. The successful synthesis of free base porphyrin and their bismuth integrated metalloporphyrins was identified using 1H NMR spectroscopy, UV-Visible and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR). Further, these bismuth based metalloporphyrins complex were doped with thermally reduced graphene oxide (TRGO) via simple solvothermal techniques. The intrinsic characteristics of prepared metalloporphyrins based reduced graphene oxide nanocomposites were examined by using various spectroscopic techniques like, photo-physical properties (UV–Visible spectroscopy and Fluorescence spectroscopy), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), powdered X-ray diffraction (P-XRD) patterns, FE-SEM and EDX analysis. At last, the photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine B (Rh-b) dye was demonstrated by the steady-state luminescence and ground-state absorption measurements, demonstrating the effectiveness of these nanocomposites as photocatalysts. The catalytic efficiency of RGO-Bi-P1 and RGO-Bi-P2 came out to be 94% and 93%, respectively.