Novel durable bio-photocatalyst purifiers, a non-heterogeneous mechanism: Accelerated entrapped dye degradation into structural polysiloxane-shield nano-reactors

. [Display omitted] ► Design of innovative Ag/TiO2 polysiloxane-shield nano-reactors on the PET fabric. ► Development of novel durable bio-photocatalyst purifiers. ► Acceleration entrapped dye degradation into the polysiloxane-shield nano-reactors. ► Developing a practical, fast, affordable and environment-friendliness technique. ► Optimization of the treatment to achieve simultaneous best photo-degradation and antibacterial efficiency. This research has designed innovative Ag/TiO2 polysiloxane-shield nano-reactors on the PET fabric to develop novel durable bio-photocatalyst purifiers. To create these very fine nano-reactors, oppositely surface charged multiple size nanoparticles have been applied accompanied with a crosslinkable amino-functionalized polysiloxane (XPs) emulsion. Investigation of photocatalytic dye decolorization efficiency revealed a non-heterogeneous mechanism including an accelerated degradation of entrapped dye molecules into the structural polysiloxane-shield nano-reactors. In fact, dye molecules can be adsorbed by both Ag and XPs due to their electrostatic interactions and/or even via forming a complex with them especially with silver NPs. The absorbed dye and active oxygen species generated by TiO2 were entrapped by polysiloxane shelter and the presence of silver nanoparticles further attract the negative oxygen species closer to the adsorbed dye molecules. In this way, the dye molecules are in close contact with concentrated active oxygen species into the created nano-reactors. This provides an accelerated degradation of dye molecules. This non-heterogeneous mechanism has been detected on the sample containing all of the three components. Increasing the concentration of Ag and XPs accelerated the second step beginning with an enhanced rate. Further, the treated samples also showed an excellent antibacterial activity.