Effect of annealing temperature on photocalaytic dye degradation study of TiO2 nanoparticles prepared by non-conventional sol-gel technique

Abstract

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles (NP) find several applications starting from window layer of solar-cell to dye degradation due to its varied optical and electrical properties. In this paper a low cost synthesis method of TiO2 nano powder is reported using non-conventional sol-gel method and used for dye degradation study. Here the starting material used was TiO2 micropowder instead of alkoxide. The prepared nano-powders were annealed at various temperatures for the variation in physical properties. The structural, morphological and photocatalytic properties of the prepared samples were studied. The XRD confirm the crystalline phase of all prepared samples and also shows the variation of crystallite size with annealing temperature. The morphological characterization by SEM confirms the uniform spherical shape of the grains. The grain size significantly decreases due to annealing. The prepared samples were used for methylene blue (MB) dye degradation study using an indegeneously built UV-reactor and compared with the degradation rate of the same dye by using raw powder. It is observed that there is four times enhancement in the degradation rate with the prepared samples at 500 degree annealing temperature in comparison to the procured raw powder.