Abstract
Nanocrystalline TiO2 powders with high photocatalytic activity were prepared by one-step microemulsion-mediated hydrothermal method using tetrabutylorthotitanate (TiO(C4H9)4, TBOT) as precursor. The as-prepared TiO2 powders were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) specific surface area measurements. The effects of the oil/water ratio and hydrothermal temperature on the microstructures and photocatalytic activity of the TiO2 powders were investigated. The results suggest that increasing the oil/water emulsion ratio significantly decreased the particle size of the as-prepared TiO2 powders and improved the photocatalytic activity. With hydrothermal temperature increasing, the average crystallite size increased and the photocatalytic activities of TiO2 powders decreased.
Highlights
The excellent performance of semiconducting oxide materials in the photocatalytic realm has attracted scientific interest for ongoing research [1]
When the oil/water ratio was increased, the average particle sizes of the TiO2 powders decreased, which were consistent with X-ray diffraction (XRD) result
Since the grain growth of particles is limited by the size of the reverse micelles in the microemulsion hydrothermal process, increasing the oil/water ratio decreases the size of the TiO2 particles formed therein
Summary
The excellent performance of semiconducting oxide materials in the photocatalytic realm has attracted scientific interest for ongoing research [1]. Fundamental researches regarding the preparation of photocatalyst with highly photocatalytic activity, the immobilization of powder photocatalyst, and the improvement of photocatalyst performance are priorities to be considered [7] Many methods, such as hydrolysis (chemical precipitation) [8], reverse micelles (microemulsion) [9] [10], sol-gel [11] [12] and hydrothermal crystallization [13]-[15], have been used to prepare TiO2 nanocrystalline photocatalyst. The high processing temperatures and long reaction time result in the formation of large sized particles with a wide size distribution [16] It is in need of developing a novel and environmentally benign approach to preparing TiO2 nanocrystalline photocatalyst. The effects of hydrothermal processing temperature or time on the microstructures and photocatalytic behavior of the obtained TiO2 powders were investigated in detail
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