Abstract Lignin-based carbonaceous material (LBC) with graphitic/semi-graphitic skeleton and oxygenated surface functionalities was prepared by hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) method. Thanks to these properties, LBC becomes a strong candidate as a semiconductor support in photocatalytic applications. In this study, LBC was used as a support material for widely known photocatalyst TiO2 and results showed that a chemical interaction occurred between carboxyl groups of LBC and metallic center of TiO2. TiO2 nanoparticles were also synthesized by the hydrothermal method without LBC support (s-TiO2). Effects of LBC- TiO2, s-TiO2 and commercial TiO2 (c-TiO2) on the removal of methylene blue (MB) as a cationic dye and phenol were compared under different irradiations (UVA and visible light). X-ray photoelectron (XPS), Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), UV–Vis diffuse reflectance (UV-DRS) and raman spectroscopy techniques, as well as x-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy energy dispersive spectrometry (SEM-EDX) mapping and scanning and high resulation transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) analyses, were performed in order to collect valuable information about the material. LBC-TiO2 presented superior apparent first-order rate constants for MB and phenol removal than those obtained on c-TiO2 and s-TiO2 under visible light. It can be concluded that the photocatalytic performance of LBC-TiO2 was definitely higher than that of bare and commercial TiO2 thanks to sensitization and activation effect of LBC. This study reports an economical and environmentally friendly alternative for preparing catalyst supports from lignin.

中文翻译：

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利用木质素作为模型生物质组分制备紫外和可见光下的高活性光催化剂

摘要 采用水热碳化（HTC）法制备了具有石墨/半石墨骨架和氧化表面功能的木质素基碳质材料（LBC）。由于这些特性，LBC 成为光催化应用中半导体载体的有力候选者。在这项研究中，LBC 被用作广为人知的光催化剂 TiO2 的载体材料，结果表明 LBC 的羧基与 TiO2 的金属中心之间发生了化学相互作用。TiO2 纳米颗粒也通过水热法合成，没有 LBC 载体（s-TiO2）。比较了 LBC-TiO2、s-TiO2 和商业 TiO2 (c-TiO2) 在不同照射（UVA 和可见光）下对作为阳离子染料和苯酚的亚甲蓝 (MB) 去除的影响。X 射线光电子 (XPS)、Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET)、紫外-可见漫反射 (UV-DRS) 和拉曼光谱技术，以及 X 射线衍射 (XRD)、扫描电子显微镜能量色散光谱 (SEM-EDX) 映射和扫描和高分辨率透射电子显微镜 (HRTEM) 分析, 是为了收集有关材料的有价值的信息。在可见光下，LBC-TiO2 对 MB 和苯酚的去除表现出比 c-TiO2 和 s-TiO2 更好的表观一级速率常数。可以得出结论，由于 LBC 的敏化和活化作用，LBC-TiO2 的光催化性能明显高于裸和商业 TiO2。该研究报告了一种从木质素制备催化剂载体的经济且环保的替代方案。