Immobilization of chlorophyll on different functionalized mesoporous materials has been attempted.
The replacement of butanediol with monoethanol amine has resulted in increase in chlorophyll loading
by a factor of two. The maximum immobilization of chlorophyll was on MCM-41 functionalized with
monoethanolamine MCM-41/MEA/Chl) as compared to other mesoporous materials. This material has
been characterized using XRD, UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy
(SEM-EDX) and fluorescence spectroscopy. The photocatalytic reduction ofmethyl orange (MO)was studied
using MCM-41/MEA/Chl as photocatalyst under the visible light. The photocatalytic reduction of MO
was 0.396 mg/g of MCM-41/MEA/Chl photocatalyst as compared to 0.508 mg/g of TiO2 for that of Degussa
P-25 photocatalyst. The effect of various operating parameters like catalyst loading, initial concentration
and intensity of light has also been studied. Photocatalytic property of chlorophyll-based photocatalytic
material indicates that chlorophyll acts as a reaction center, which absorbs visible light and generates
electron, which is transferred to different electron acceptors reducing MO into derivative of hydrazine