Pawan S. Rana

Morphology dependent catalytic activity of TiO2 nanostructures towards photodegradation of Rose Bengal

This work deals with the synthesis of TiO2 nanostructures using sol-gel and hydrothermal method for evaluating their photodegradation performance towards decolorization of Rose Bengal (RB). A combination of characterization techniques including X-ray diffraction (XRD), Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and UV–Vis spectroscopy were utilized to evaluate the structural, morphological and optical properties of the obtained nanostructures. It was observed that the TiO2 nanoparticles prepared using hydrothermal method were highly crystalline and possess higher band gap value, even when same conditions of temperature, pressure, precursor ratios and solvent amount was kept constant while synthesizing TiO2 nanostructures via sol-gel method. The obvious effect of porous morphology exhibited by TiO2 nanoparticles prepared using hydrothermal route is reflected in its decolorization performance whereby 92.5% of the RB dye solution was degraded in 70 min of irradiation time.