X-ray diffraction and spectroscopic studies of microwave synthesized mesoporous titania nanoparticles for photodegradation of 2-chlorophenol under visible light

Abstract

The photocatalytic degradation of 2-chlorophenol (2-CP) in aqueous solution was studied under visible light irradiation using mesoporous titania nanoparticles (MTN) catalyst. MTN was prepared by a microwave (MW) - assisted method under various MW power densities which are 0.56 (MTN1), 0.37 (MTN2) and 0.12 (MTN3) W g -1 . The catalysts were characterized by XRD, XPS, UV-Vis DRS and N2 adsorption-desorption. The characterization data show higher microwave power increased the crystallinity, number of oxygen vacancies (OV) and Ti 3+ surface defects (TSD) also surface area while decreasing the band gap of the MTN catalysts. MTN1 shows the highest degradation of 2-CP with 100% compared with MTN2 (88.48%) and MTN3 (86.39%). The optimum condition for photocatalytic degradation of 2-CP was obtained at pH 5, 10ppm of 2-CP and 0.075g of catalyst.