Electrochemical Synthesis of TiO 2 under Pulse Alternating Current: Effect of Thermal Treatment on the Photocatalytic Activity

• Published in: ChemistrySelect (Weinheim) Vol. 4; no. 6; pp. 2001 - 2007
• Main Authors: Ulyankina, Anna, Avramenko, Marina, Kusnetsov, Denis, Firestein, Konstantin, Zhigunov, Denis, Smirnova, Nina
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 14-02-2019
• ISSN: 2365-6549; 2365-6549
• DOI: 10.1002/slct.201803367

The current work aimed to study the effect of thermal treatment on the structural, optical, and photocatalytic properties of TiO
2
nanoparticles synthesized by a novel large‐scale electrochemical method using pulse alternating current (PAC). The obtained titania was characterized via XRD, TEM, XPS, UV‐Vis DRS, PL, Raman and FTIR spectroscopy. The as‐prepared TiO
2
was found to be poorly crystallized and partly amorphous. Following thermal annealing, the anatase structure is developed at temperatures of 400–600 °C. The photoreactivity of the TiO
2
nanoparticles was evaluated for the degradation of methylene blue (MB) and rhodamin B (RhB) dyes under UVA irradiation. As shown, the adsorption properties and photocatalytic activity of the as‐prepared TiO
2
strongly depend on the chemical nature of the dye. The enhanced photocatalytic performance for the MB and RhB degradation was observed for the sample annealed at 400 °C, which coincides with a balance between the degree of crystallinity, specific surface area, optical properties and efficiency of electron‐hole pair separation.