Abstract

Aware Dinkar Vishwanath¹, Jadhav Shridhar Shankar²  Navgire Madhukar Eknath³,  Athare Anil Eknath² and Kolhe Nitin Haribhau²

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.13005/ojc/330111

Highly efficient, photoactive, nanocrystalline TiO₂ powder was prepared with the help of modified sol-gel method. The prepared nanomaterials were characterized by modern techniques such as, TG-DTA, XRD, FE-SEM, EDX, TEM, BET surface area and FT-IR analysis for the identification of phase structure, phase composition and morphology. Formation of thermally stable, nanocrystalline, highley photocatalytic active, tetragonal anatase Titania was confirmed by TGA-DTA, XRD and HR-TEM. Similarly, FE-SEM confirms spherical, cauliflower like morphology for all Titania samples prepared with different cationic surfactants. The presence of mesoporous Titania was also confirmed by N₂ adsorption-desorption. The effect of addition of various surfactants significantly improves the photocatalytic activity. Prepared nanomaterials were successfully tested under UV-Vis light region for photodegradation of Methyl Red (MR) dye material which is act as water pollutant. The C₁₆TAB assisted Titania exhibits enhance photocatalytic efficiency as compared to industrially applied photocatalyst, Titania (Degussa P25) and zinc oxide under similar experimental condition.

TiO2 nanoparticles; cationic surfactants; sol-gel synthesis; photocatalysis; methyl red

[ View HTML Full Text]