Efficient photocatalytic dye decomposition using TiO2 nanostructured thin film grown by non-conventional sol-gel technique

Abstract

In this work, TiO2 nanostructured thin films were grown by the cheap and easy non-conventional sol–gel method. The grown thin films were also used for efficient photocatalytic dye decomposition. For this, first 4.5 ml of acetic acid was mixed with 5 gm of TiO2 powder. The mixture was stirred for 30 min after adding deionized water (40 ml) and 5 drops of nitric acid. Then the mixture was heated at 100 °C for two hours to get a gel. Then the paste was coated over a glass substrate and beakers by doctor’s blade method to get the thin films. The morphological and structural characterization of the thin films were done by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X ray diffraction analysis. From the SEM the average diameter of the nanaoparticles are estimated to be about 68 nm. The prepared thin films were used for efficient photocatalytic decomposition of Methylene Blue dye.