Abstract
The development of visible-light responsive photocatalysts would permit more efficient use ofsolar energy, and thus would bring sustainable solutions to many environmental issues. Conductivepolymers appear as a new class of very active photocatalysts under visible light. Among them poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) is one of the most promising conjugated polymer with a widerange of applications. PEDOT nanostructures synthesized in soft templates via chemical oxidativepolymerization demonstrate unprecedented photocatalytic activities for water treatment withoutthe assistance of sacrificial reagents or noble metal co-catalysts and turn out to be better than TiO2as benchmark catalyst. The PEDOT nanostructures exhibit a narrow band gap (E = 1.69 eV) and arecharacterized by excellent ability to absorb light in visible and near infrared region. The novel PEDOTbasedphotocatalysts are very stable with cycling and can be reused without appreciable loss of activity.Interestingly, hollow micrometric vesicular structures of PEDOT are not effective photocatalysts ascompared to nanometric spindles suggesting size and shape dependent photocatalytic properties.The visible-light active photocatalytic properties of the polymer nanostructures present promisingapplications in solar light harvesting and broader fields.