An Effective Photocatalytic Degradation of Industrial Pollutants through Converting Titanium Oxide to Magnetic Nanotubes and Hollow Nanorods by Kirkendall Effect.

Osama Saber,Mostafa Osama,Hassan A. Khater,Hicham Mahfoz Kotb

doi:10.3390/nano12030440

Osama Saber, Mostafa Osama + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/nano12030440

Copy DOI

Abstract

Controlling of morphology from nanoparticles to magnetic nanotubes and hollow nanorods are interesting for developing the photo-active materials and their applications in the field of photocatalysis and decontamination of aquatic effluents. In the current study, titanium dioxide nanoparticles and nanocomposites were prepared by different techniques to produce various morphologies. The nanoparticles of pure titanium dioxide were prepared by sol-gel technique. Magnetic nanotubes and hollow nanorods were prepared by combining titanium with di- and tri-valent iron through two stages: urea hydrolysis and solvent thermal technique. According to the Kirkendall effect, magnetic nanotubes were fabricated by unequal diffusion of Fe2+, Fe3+ and Ti4+ inside the nanocomposite to produce maghemite-titanian phase. In the same trend, hollow nanorods were synthesized by limited diffusion of both trivalent iron and tetravalent titanium producing amorphous structure of titanium iron oxides. The magnetic and optical properties showed that these nanotubes and hollow nanorods are magnetically active and optically more effective compared with titanium dioxide nanoparticles. Therefore, the Naphthol green B dye completely disappeared after 45 min of UV light irradiation in presence of the hollow nanorods. The kinetic study confirmed the high performance of the hollow nanorods for the photocatalytic degradation of Naphthol green B compared with titanium dioxide nanoparticles.

Highlights

IntroductionOne of the main targets of the scientific communities is creating a sustainable society
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutralCurrently, one of the main targets of the scientific communities is creating a sustainable society
In order to indicate the effective role of Kirkendall effect on the morphology and the optical and magnetic properties of titanium dioxide for removing industrial dyes through insertion of different species of iron, nanoparticles of titanium dioxide were prepared by Sol-Gel technique for comparison

Summary

Introduction

One of the main targets of the scientific communities is creating a sustainable society. It aims at decontamination of aquatic effluents through developing clean and efficient technologies based on renewable resources. In this way, one of the most effective and clean techniques is photocatalysis. The optical energy is used in the photocatalysis processes as a driving force for converting organic pollutants to water and carbon dioxide. Many researchers considered that sunlight is a good solution for cleaning water from the colored pollutants through using semiconductors in photocatalytic degradation processes of dyes [2,3]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion