Effects of pH on physicochemical properties of nanocrystalline TiO[sub 2] synthesized via sol-gel hydrothermal method

Abstract

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) has been extensively studied as it can be applied to many different applications. TiO2 nanomaterial has several unique properties that enable them to be desirable for many applications and make the production of TiO2 nanomaterial very important and in demand. Multitude of methods and processes are available to synthesize these TiO2 nanomaterials. The ability to manipulate and control the method is the key in producing these nanomaterials with specific properties for the desired applications. Sol-gel hydrothermal is a very flexible and cost-effective method that has been employed to produce TiO2 nanocrystalline. This paper presents the experimental study on the method to produce titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanocrystalline by using sol-gel hydrothermal method. A simple sol-gel hydrothermal technique which is easily controlled and reproduced is done to obtain nanocrystalline titanium dioxide (TiO2). By hydrolyzing titanium tetrachloride, TiCl4 in a mixture of hydrochloric acid (HCl) and deionized water, TiO2 nanopowder was obtained after calcinations at 400 °C. The samples were characterized by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM), X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) and UV-Vis spectroscopy to study their physicochemical properties. From the result obtained, it shows that TiO2 nanocrystalline is well synthesized at pH 2 with estimated size of 10-20 nm and also have the highest absorption intensity compared to other samples.