Hydrothermal Synthesis of TiO2-rGO By Green Chemical Method

Abstract

Sunlight induced degradation of organic pollutants is an ideal approach for environmental pollution control and waste water treatment. Although variety of photocatalysts has been designed towards this goal, efficient degradation of organic pollutants by visible light is a challenging issue. Here we show that reduced graphene oxide (rGO) based composite with TiO2 nanoparticle (TiO2-rGO) can act as efficient visible light photocatalyst for degradation of organic pollutants. We have developed a simple and large scale synthesis method for TiO2-rGO and used them for degradation of well known carcinogenic organic dye ie., Methtylene blue under visible light. It is found that photocatalytic efficiency by TiO2-rGO under visible light is significantly higher. It is proposed that TiO2 nanoparticle offers visible light induced excitation and conductive rGO offers efficient charge separation and thus induces oxidative degradation of organic pollutant. This approach can be extended for sunlight induced degradation of different organic pollutants.