Effect of annealing atmosphere towards TiO2 nanoparticles on their photocatalytic performance in aquoues phase

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the affluence of annealing atmosphere condition towards the formation of titania nanoparticles for photocatalytic application. The design and fabrication of titania powder is modified from Parkody and Arakiamary using titanium isopropoxide as precursor and annealed at temperature of 300°C for 4 hours. Distinct peaks of pure anatase are present at 25.4°, 37.8°, 48° and 53.7°, corresponding to plane (101), (004), (200) and (211) respectively. Surface morphology studies via FESEM displays that the fine particles is agglomerated due to the high surface energy that attract neighbor particles to combine together and hold the primary particles to cluster. Also, TEM micrograph shows particles size is varied from 6 to 15 nm as accordance with XRD calculation. It is noted that all prepared samples shows degradation of more than 50% of methyl orange within first hour of UV light irradiation compared to commercial Degussa P-25. However, samples prepared at pH 3, annealed in carbon shows the highest photocatalytic activity as the degradation percentage is 85% from initial MO solution.