Development of a novel photocatalyst: Titania nanostructure bunches decorated on graphene oxide for enhanced photocatalytic efficiency

Abstract

Titania decorated on graphene oxide nano-sheets (TiO2-GO-N) was developed by a two-step procedure. The TiO2-GO-N was then characterized by energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), transmission electron microscope (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) analyses. Scherrer equation analysis revealed that the crystallite size of TiO2 nanoparticles decorated on graphene oxide (GO) was 3.37 nm. The TEM images showed that the particle size of TiO2 decorated on the GO nano-sheets ranges from 3-5 nm. Photocatalytic degradation of Congo red (CR) by TiO2-GO-N was studied experimentally by varying the pH values from 4.0–10.0. The highest photocatalytic efficiency of nearly 92% for the initial Congo red dosage of 15 × 10−3 mmol/l was observed at a pH of 4. The photocatalytic efficiency was 73.28% at the nearest environmentally relevant pH = 6 has been chosen for further studies.