Sol-gel Synthesis and Photocatalytic Characterization of the Anatasenanopowder

Semiconductor photocatalysts are becoming more and more attractive due to their excellent potential to solve environmental problems. Among them, nanosizedanatase-phase titanium dioxide (TiO2) is of great interest due to the strong oxidizing power of its holes, high photostability and redox selectivity. In this research, we have synthesized single-phase anataseTiO2 nanoparticles and investigated their photocatalytic activity. A sol-gel route was utilized to prepare the material and demonstrate the advantages of the low-temperature preparation. In the first step, we investigated the thermal behavior of the prepared sol by simultaneous thermal analysis (STA) to determine the proper heat-treatment conditions. The as-prepared powders were subsequently characterized by Xray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and BET surface area measurement technique. The mean crystallite size, for each heat-treatment conditions, was also calculated based on the Scherer equation. The photocatalytic activity of the powders was investigated using both Methylene Blue and Rhodamine B as model organic compounds under UV light irradiation.