تحضير وتوصيف جسيمات ثنائي أوكسيد التيتانيوم النانوية بإستخدام المايكروويف و تطبيقها في معالجة المياه

Synthesis and Characterization of TiO2 Nanoparticles by Microwave and its Application toward Water Treatment

Abstract

In this study, titanium dioxide (TiO2) was synthesized using the microwave method as a rapid, uncostly, and effective method. In order to study the effect of the solvent and the power on the morphology, particle size, and the specific surface area of the prepared samples, two different solvents were used. The first solvent was Ethylene Glycol (EG, 99.8%) and the other was Deionized Water (DIW), while titanium isopropoxide Ti[OCH(CH3)2]4 (TTIP) was used as TiO2 precursor. A commercial microwave oven was used with three different powers and 5 minutes was selected as a duration of the preparation time. The prepared specimens were annealed at 400 °C for 1 h.
In present work, diverse techniques were used to study the structure and the morphology of the prepared samples, such as X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Brunaner-Emmett-Teller (BET) technique, Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy coupled with Energy-Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (FESEM-EDX), and Fourier Transforms Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Noticeably, the XRD results revealed that the prepared samples were pure TiO2 in the anatase phase. The surface area of TiO2 nanoparticles has been estimated using BET analysis, which indicated that the samples have a large specific surface area and high porosity (for the samples prepared with DIW were higher than samples prepared with EG). The FESEM results showed that the prepared TiO2 samples were nanorods-like shape when EG was used as a solvent. In contrast, spherical agglomerated nanoparticles were obtained when DIW was used as a solvent, while the increase in power caused an increase in the nanoparticles’ size. The FTIR measurements have shown the vibration patterns in the spectrum of the samples, indicating the formation of O-Ti-O.
The performance of the prepared samples for water treatment was studied using a standard photocatalytic degradation experiment. The Methylene Blue (MB) with a concentration of (10 ppm) in deionized water was used as a polluted system. All the experiments were conducted under ultraviolet (UV) for (100 min) of exposure time. The highest removal of methylene blue from solution was observed with the DIW 60% sample, which reached about 64.22 % under UV irradiation during the exposure time. This is due to the increase in the surface area of the prepared sample.