Facile one-pot synthesis of TiO2@ZnTiO3 nanocomposites with efficient photocatalytic activity

Abstract

ABSTARCT A solvothermal one-pot simple procedure was established in this study to produce high crystalline titania@zinc-titanate inorganic hybrid nanomaterial (TiO2@ZnTiO3). The key of this protocol is the use of dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as reaction medium in which the Ti(IV) and Zn(II) precursors react. No further reagents are necessary in this chemical process which make it very easy to reproduce and to control in large scale. On the other hand, to obtain a high crystalline nanomaterial, a heat treatment (calcination) step is necessary. The optimum condition established to obtain pure and high crystalline nanomaterials was found to be at 600 °C heat treatment temperature with molar ratio R = n (Ti)/n (Zn) = 1. As demonstrated in the next section, below this calcination temperature, zinc titanate cannot be constructed while titanium dioxide (TiO2) starts to crystalline from 500 °C. This result reveals that the zinc-titanate (ZnTiO3) can be generated when the calcined temperature is just equal or higher than 600 °C. TiO2@ZnTiO3 nanocomposite displayed irregular shapes with an average size of 100 nm to 5 μm. The as-prepared TiO2@ZnTiO3 nanocomposite exhibited also interesting photo-response especially in the UV region. To exploit this absorption property, the photocatalytic test was achieved against diuron molecules as sacrifice pesticide. The preliminary results show a promising improvement of the photocatalytic activity; a 3-fold increase in photocatalytic performance compared to the pristine TiO2 NPs.