Morphological evolution of sol-gel synthesized Ag-TiO2 nanocomposite

Abstract

Addition of silver to titanium dioxide particles are known to increase its photocatalytic activity. Despite the numerous researches that has studied the mechanism of photocatalytic activity of Ag-TiO2 nanocomposite, there are only a few papers that discuss the formation mechanism of this material. In this research, Ag-TiO2 nanocomposite was successfully synthesized through sol-gel method. The morphology of nanocomposite was determined through the synthesis procedure and calcination temperature. Characterization results showed that at the solution phase, crystallization was slowed down by the presence of acid. However, after the drying process, rapid increase in titanium dioxide crystallization rate was observed due to the presence of silver particles. As a result, a transition from anatase to rutile was observed at a lower temperature.