Synthesis and Characterization of Ag Added Nanostructured TiO2 using Sol-gel Technique

Abstract

Metal doped TiO₂ has considerable applications in visible light enhanced photocatalysis for hydrogen production, waste water treatment and self-cleaning surfaces. The initial phase to achieve visible light activated metal doped TiO₂ is to synthesize them in a suitable method and to analyse the effect of metal ions on the nanosized TiO₂ crystal lattice. Herein, we report the synthesis of pure and silver doped nanostructured TiO₂ at three different molar concentrations by sol-gel method using titanium tetraisopropoxide [Ti(OC₃H₇)₄] (TTIP) and silver nitrate (AgNO₃) as precursors. The thermal decomposition of the xerogel was studied using TGA-DTA. FT-IR spectrum of the xerogel of the pure sample and the annealed samples were recorded. The crystal structure, average crystallite size and the amount of phase contents were determined using the powder XRD.The results show that the synthesized nanostructured TiO₂ containing both anatase and brookite phases.In addition to this, the effects of silver addition in the titania matrix were studied using Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy.