Tinospora cordifolia mediated eco-friendly synthesis of Cobalt doped TiO2 NPs for degradation of organic methylene blue dye

Abstract

The primary global source of water pollution is industrial and textile dyes. Highly stable organic dyes are produced by these industries that are released untreated into nearby ponds, lakes and rivers. This paper is devoted to Tinospora Cordifolia (TC) mediated eco-friendly synthesis of Co-TiO2 NPs via microwave-assisted method to degrade the MB dye. TC act as a capping agent that leads to crystallization creation of TiO2 NPs from a precursor solution of Titanium (IV) isopropoxide and further calcinated separately at 400 and 700 °C temperature to achieve the anatase and rutile phase of Co-TiO2 NPs respectively. The synthesized Co-TiO2 NPs were analyzed with different characterization methods. XRD and Raman analysis confirmed the crystalline nature for both phases of Co-TiO2 NPs with a tetragonal structure having crystallite size of 28 and 47 nm for the anatase and rutile phase respectively. Scanning electron microscope determined the spheroidal surface morphology for both phases of Co-TiO2 NPs. The absorption peaks of Co-TiO2 NPs originated from 200 to 400 nm from UV–Visible spectroscopy in which the bandgap was found to be 3.54 for anatase and 3.47 eV for rutile, respectively. Photocatalytic degradation for organic MB dye was evaluated under ultra-violet irradiation using Co-TiO2 NPs for 120 min which exhibited the degradation up to 100 and 97 % for anatase and rutile phase respectively.