Nanocrystalline Thin Films TiO<sub>2</sub> Prepared by Different Concentration of Organic Acid and their Photocatalytic Activity

Abstract

In this work, TiO2thin films were deposited on borosilicate glass substrates by sol-gel dip coating method and calcined at 500 °C for 15 min(heating rate3°C/min). The TiO2sol was prepared by fixing concentration of titaniumtetraisopropoxide(TTIP), TritonX-100 surfactant, ethanol and conc hydrochloric acid but amounts of acetyl acetone (Acac ) were various as 4, 6 and 8 mole respectively. After calcination process, all the TiO2thin films were homogeneous and transparent. Several techniques , such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-Vis spectroscopy, Environment Scanning Electron Microscope (E-SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and BET surface area analysis were used to characterize the prepared TiO2thin film. Spectra of XRD showed that the crystal structure was anatase phase with the crystal sizes of 9.05 – 12.57 nm. According to BET surface area analysis, the surface area , pore volume and pore size of TiO2were in the range of 66.35-82.53 m2/gm , 0.1194-0.1301 cm3/g and 57-71 A0respectively. The photodegradation of Reactive Blue 19 by the prepared TiO2thin films showed decomposition rate of 97.58% , 95.03 % and 94.48% for the thin films prepared by using 4, 6 and 8 mole AcAc respectively.