Preparation, characterization and photocatalytic activity of TiO2/reduced graphene oxide nanocomposite

Abstract

In this paper, graphene oxide was synthesized from graphite by means of Hummer's method. The appropriate amounts of reagents (titanium tetraisopropoxide, i-propanol, acetylacetone, and nitric acid) were used to prepare a stable TiO2 colloidal solution (sol). To order to improve the photocatalytic performance of TiO2, TiO2/rGO nanocomposite with 10 wt.% of rGO was prepared by a direct sol-gel method, followed by the hydrothermal method, and calcination treatment. The synthesized pure TiO2 and TiO2/10 wt. % rGO nanocomposite photocatalysts were characterized by Raman spectroscopy, Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with Energy-Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (SEM/EDXS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR/ATR), and powder X-ray diffraction (P-XRD). The photocatalytic activity was investigated by the methylene blue (MB) dye degradation under ultraviolet (UV) and simulated solar light irradiations. The effect of different amounts of the photocatalysts on the MB dye aqueous sollution degradation under both irradiation sorces was investigated. The obtained results show that prepared TiO2/10 wt. % rGO photocatalyst is promising candidate for photodegradation of organic pollutants from water/wastewater under sunlight irradiation.