Green synthesis of TiO2 and its photocatalytic activity

Anatase titanium dioxide nanoparticles were prepared from titanium oxysulphate (TiOSO4) as a precursor and the base polymer Polyvinyl Pyrrolidone is used as a capping agent. TiO2 nanoparticles were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, EDS, FT-IR, DLS, UV–Vis. Diffuse reflectance spectrophotometer. From XRD analysis it is seen that obtained diffraction peaks are broad which indicating that crystallite size is very small. Scanning Electron Micrograph (SEM) revealed that TiO2 nanoparticles has diameter of 10 nm calcined at 400 °C. Photocatalytic activity was checked by employing the Methyl Orange as a model pollutant under UV-light (365 nm) which shows 94 % photo-degradation in 150 min. The novelty of present approach is the large scale production of polymer capped TiO2 nanocrystals by using sol–gel process.