Engineering of mono-dispersed mesoporous TiO2 over 1-D nanorods for water purification under visible light irradiation

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2021 Apr;28(15):18768-18777. doi: 10.1007/s11356-020-10547-z. Epub 2020 Sep 14.

Abstract

Herein we synthesized a novel structure of mesoporous TiO2 decorated on 1D ZnO nanorods for environmental remediation. The effect of mesoporous TiO2 over 1D nanorods were investigated. The phase transitions of nanocomposite were confirmed by powder diffraction analysis. The morphological investigation of synthesized TiO2/ZnO catalyst revealed that the TiO2 are in porous in nature which covered the surface of 1D nanorods. The size of mesoporous TiO2 nanoparticles was about 10-15 nm. The chemical composition and elemental mapping results clearly evident that the presence of ZnO and TiO2 is distributed uniformly on ZnO nanorods. TiO2/ZnO nanocomposite shows enhanced activity which degrades in 14 min under visible light irradiation. TiO2/ZnO catalyst with 5 wt % exhibited the high photocatalytic activity (0.1882 min-1). It is proposed that a synergistic interaction between ZnO and TiO2 leads to a charge separation which leads to the enhanced activity.

Keywords: Mesoporous; Nanorods; Photocatalytic activity; TiO2/ZnO; Visible light.

MeSH terms

  • Light
  • Nanotubes*
  • Titanium
  • Water Purification*

Substances

  • titanium dioxide
  • Titanium