Directed synthesis of TiO2 nanorods and their photocatalytic activity

TiO2 nanorods with different crystal form and size have been successfully synthesized by two different solid-state chemical reaction routes. The composition and microstructure of as-synthesized materials were characterized by XRD, TGA, Raman, TEM, FESEM, BET, and DFT analysis. It was found that the growth of TiO2 rod-like structure was directly assembled by anatase titanium nanoparticles about 20 nm in size. The photocatalytic activities of samples were investigated by measuring the degradation of methyl orange (MO) and methylene blue (MB) under UV or simulated sunlight irradiation. About 99% of MB was degraded by as-synthesized TiO2 within 50 min, which revealed that samples had excellent photocatalytic activities. This study provides a simple and economical way to prepare high active anatase titanium photocatalysts. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.