Eco-friendly palm oil directed synthesis of mesoporous titania for photocatalytic application

Abstract

Abstract Utilisation of templates facilitates the synthesis of titania samples with improved physico-chemical properties. When biomaterials are utilised as templates in the creation of inorganic materials, they can lead to constructed mesostructures via cost-effective and environmentally friendly synthetic pathways. Based on this context, the goal of this study was to assess the impact of palm oil on the surface properties and crystallite characteristics of titania nanoparticles. In this work, the various physico-chemical parameters such as thermal, surface area, porosity, crystallinity, chemical composition, textural and morphological characteristics of the palm oil (PO) templated titania were studied using various analysis techniques. Palm oil templated titania samples were synthesised using various amounts of palm oil as templates. The sample generated with a molar ratio of PO over titania precursor of 0.07 possessed large surface area (74.5 m2 g−1), small particle size (13.4 nm), uniformly dispersed spherical particles with good morphology and porosity among the various templated titania produced in this work. In addition, it was found to possess maximum photocatalytic efficiency in degrading the target 4-chlorophenol under UV irradiation.