Evolution of Textural, Structural and Morphological Properties of Ag/TiO2 Nanocomposites Tailored by Temperature

Abstract

AbstractTiO2 is a promising material for use in environmental purification due to its strong oxidizing power, photoinduced hydrophilicity, non-toxicity and long-term photostability. Nanocomposites formed by silver dispersed in titania matrix have their application quality improved since silver particles can act in the electronic structure of the titania. In this work, titanium isopropoxide and silver nitrate solution was used as starting of Ag/TiO2 nanocomposites. After irradiation and gelification at room temperature, this material was dried and calcined at various temperatures up to 1100 °C. The nanocomposites were characterized to investigate the structural evolution of the nanoparticles and the dependence of crystallite size with the calcination temperature.