Synthesis and photocatalytic activity of TiO2 on phenol degradation

Abstract EN

Photocatalysis is a process of accelerating reactions that are assisted by energy from light irradiation.

titanium dioxide (TiO2) is one of the most widely developed photocatalysis materials, and is used because of its high catalytic activity, stability and very affordable.

the most commonly used precursors of TiO₂ are titanium butoxide (TBOT) and titanium tetraisopropoxide (TTIP).

These variations in precursor can lead to phase difference in the formation of TiO₂ crystals, which further improves its nature in the activity of photocatalysis.

In this study, the sol-gel method was used to synthesize titanium dioxide nanoparticles from variations of TBOT and TTIP.

furthermore, the structure, crystallite size and band gap of TiO₂ were determined by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV-vis reflectance spectroscopy (DRS).

subsequently, TiO2 photocatalytic activity was evaluated in phenol photodegradation as a contaminant model with UV irradiation.

the results showed the structure synthesized from TBOT had a higher amount of anatase, higher crystallinity, smaller crystallite size, larger band gap, and better photocatalytic activity than those from TTIP.

furthermore, it was shown that TiO₂ from TBOT had an efficiency of 147% greater than TiO : P25 Degussa, while TiO₂ from TTIP had 66% efficiency compared to TiO₂ P25.