Highly Efficient Removal of Organic Dyes from Wastewater Using Ultrathin Ag assisted TiO 2 Nanowires

Abstract

Abstract High purity ultrathin Ag-assisted titania (TiO2) nanowires with controlled aspect ratio were prepared by a facile solvothermal approach. The dimensions of as-prepared nanowire structures such as length and diameter can be easily tuned from 100 nm to 3 nm and from few millimeters to several hundred nanometers respectively by optimizing concentration of precursors and octadecylamine (ODA) as surfactant. The as-prepared samples were studied and characterized by several analytical techniques like transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES), surface area measurement through Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and diffused reflectance spectroscopy (DRS). The main focus of present research work is the size-controlled synthesis of Ag assisted TiO2 nanowires and enhancement of their methylene blue (MB) degradation efficiency. A 98% photodegradation efficiency for methylene blue was achieved by utilizing 3nm thick annealed TiO2 nanowires within 20min. Recyclability of photocatalyst was also studied, with the material being found to be stable up to four runs.