Photocatalytic activity of anatase titanium dioxide nanostructures prepared by reactive magnetron sputtering technique

Abstract

In this work, nanostructured titanium dioxide (TiO2) photocatalysts with high optical and structural homogeneity were successfully synthesized by dc reactive magnetron sputtering technique. The TiO2 thin films were produced with high structural homogeneity without any heat treatment. Analysis of the X-ray diffraction patterns and UV–visible spectroscopy gave an indication that the structure of prepared films is anatase with energy band gap of 3.23 eV. The Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy has confirmed the formation of Ti–O bond. The average size of TiO2 particles in the deposited films was ranging in 5–7 nm. These nanostructures are very applicable as photocatalysts as their photocatalytic activity was determined from the degradation rate with UV irradiation time as the first order reaction rate constant was determined to be 2.4 × 10−3 min−1.