Plasma-Assisted Synthesis of TiO2 Nanorods by Gliding Arc Discharge Processing at Atmospheric Pressure for Photocatalytic Applications

The present study explores a new method of synthesis of TiO2 nano-particles in an aqueous medium from TiCl3 precursor by non-thermal plasma in humid air as feeding gas obtained at atmospheric pressure. The precursor solution, TiCl3 is oxidized by strongly reactive species generated by gliding arc plasma (HO center dot = 2.85 V/SHE) to produce titanium oxide powders. The synthesized powder was characterised by X-ray powder diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, FTIR spectroscopy, nitrogen physisorption, and UV-Vis spectroscopy. The results obtained showed that the material consists of rod-shaped nanoparticles of rutile and anatase phases. The presence of TiO2 phases was confirmed by FTIR spectrum and textural analyses showed that the material is mesoporous with specific surface area of 158 m(2) g(-1). UV-Visible spectrum of the plasma-synthesized TiO2 sample showed that it absorbs in the UV-A region leading to effective use as a photocatalyst under visible light.