Facile in situ hydrothermal synthesis of titania nanosheets on reduced graphene oxide with photocatalytic activity

Abstract

In this study, titania (TiO2) nanosheets were composited onto reduced graphene oxide (rGO) by an in situ hydrothermal synthesis method using tetrabutyl titanate and hydrofluoric acid. The photocatalytic activities of the TiO2 nanosheet/rGO nanocomposites were investigated after the application of various amounts of GO. The nanocomposites were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis, and UV–vis spectroscopy (UV–vis). The photocatalytic properties of the composites were examined. The results indicated that the TiO2 nanosheets with anatase uniformly combined with the GO. The composites exhibited higher specific surface areas after the addition of GO compared to the TiO2 nanosheets. Methyl orange (MO) exhibited the highest first-order degradation efficiency at a GO dosage of 6 wt%. The TiO2 nanosheet/rGO with 3 wt% GO exhibited a high performance after four cycles. Improvements in the photocatalytic performance depended significantly upon the composite specific surface area and the electron-storage ability of the GO. The results suggest that the TiO2 nanosheet/rGO composites are applicable for the photocatalytic treatment of various organic dyes. The synthesis method may also be applied for other composite materials with similar structures.