Enhanced the photocatalytic degradation of titanium dioxide nanoparticles synthesized by different plant extracts for wastewater treatment

Abstract

Biological synthesis pathway was used to successfully prepare titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2 NPs) as a simple synthetic process, employing three distinct aqueous extracts: pomegranate (Pom), Beta vulgaris (V.B), and Seder. In addition, typical TiO2 NPs were made using a simple wet chemical approach for comparison. Different characterization techniques, such as UV–Vis spectroscopy, XRD, FT-IR, and TEM, were used to examine all of the TiO2 NPs that were generated either through the biologically or chemically route. For all the synthesized samples, the observed XRD results reveal a tetragonal structure with two phases, rutile and anatase. The particle sizes of the materials developed range from 15.2 to 20.6 nm. The obtained results suggested that the nature of plant extract predisposes the altered aspects of the manufactured particles, such as photocatalytic, particle size, and the ratio between two phases. FT-IR spectroscopy validated the biomolecules elaborated in the biosynthetic method. In the presence of UV irradiation, the photocatalytic activities of NPs were studied using Methyl Orange (MO) organic dye as an example of water pollutant. As a result of the lower mass fraction of rutile phase, the green generated TiO2 NPs had greater photocatalytic activity and efficiency in the photodegradation of MO compared to the chemically synthesized TiO2 NPs samples. The photocatalytic destruction of the assembled NPs was discovered to follow pseudo-first order kinetics trend, with efficiency exceeding that of ultraviolet light. Moreover, the obtained results confirmed that the prepared TiO2 NPs based on biological sources are considered as a promising candidate aimed at removal of organic pollutants from water and can be applied in waste water treatment applications.