Green synthesis of NiTiO3 nanoparticles and sonocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B textile dye in water

Abstract

The single-phase NiTiO3 nanoparticles were successfully synthesized using a green synthesis method. Lime juice was used as a chelating agent. The NiTiO3 nanoparticles exhibited the R-3 rhombohedral phase of ilmenite. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) observations showed the size and shape of the synthesized NiTiO3 nanoparticles, which had an average diameter of 115 nm at an annealing temperature of 900 °C for 3 h. The sonocatalytic analysis showed that the synthesized NiTiO3 nanoparticles exhibited good sonocatalytic performance, with a Rhodamine B degradation rate of 0.047 min−1. It demonstrated that sol–gel method using lime juice supported synthesis is an excellent technique to fabricate nanosized complex ilmenite NiTiO3 nanoparticles. We expected that this work was further to use for synthesis of nanoparticles for ilmenite ceramics.