Facile synthesis and characterization of compositionally modified titania based nano materials to enhance sunlight photocatalytic activity

Abstract

As the world is full of industrial sectors, lot of industries pollutes the natural resources with their wastages. Removing the hazardous materials from the industrial waste water is essential. Among this, the vital pollutant is the dye waste. Majorly, contamination of water occurs due to this dye waste. There are several methods used for the decontamination process. Among them photo catalysis plays a vital role in the past few decades. There were different types of dyes out of which the main focus of this work is on methylene blue dye. Photocatalysis is the process in which large molecules are broken down chemically into smaller molecules. The material absorbs energy from a light and generates the catalyst activity which is termed as photocatalyst. In the present work titanium dioxide (TiO2) is used as the standard photocatalyst for the degradation of methylene blue dye. Generally TiO2 acts as a photo-active material in the ultraviolet light region. The present work aims to modify the photochemical property of TiO2 and also to enhance the sunlight photocatalytic activity. Nano sized TiO2 has high surface to volume ratio and quantum internment at the nano scale which is preferred for the photocatalysis process. The solution phase synthesis is the most adopted technique for the preparation of TiO2 in the form of nano size powders. Various methods have been adopted for making TiO2 to work in the visible region. The two main strategies employed in this work involves modification of TiO2 morphologically and chemically.The best ways for sensitizing TiO2 under solar radiation on morphological and chemical modification of titania and its photocatalytic studies is given below. Low temperature titania nano particles for high performance solar photo degradation Spherical shaped TiO2 array is prepared at low temperature (120°C) by co-precipitation method. Methylene Blue (MB) is used as an experimental dye to study the photo catalytic degradation. Photodegradation of methylene blue dye with TiO2 samples in the presence of su