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Title: Facile microwave-assisted synthesis of titanium dioxide decorated graphene nanocomposite for photodegradation of organic dyes

Journal Article · · AIP Advances
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4938544· OSTI ID:22492245
 [1];  [2];  [1]
  1. Department of Laser Studies, School of Physics, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai-625021, Tamilnadu (India)
  2. Department of Chemistry, Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai-625015, Tamilnadu (India)

An efficient and facile method was adopted to prepare TiO{sub 2}-graphene (TG) nanocomposites with TiO{sub 2} nanoparticles uniformly distributed on graphene. By adjusting the amount of TiO{sub 2} precursor, both high and low dense TiO{sub 2} nanoparticles on graphene were effectively attained via electrostatic attraction between graphene oxide sheets and TiO{sub 2} nanoparticles. The prepared nanocomposites were characterized by various characterization techniques. The TG nanocomposite showed an excellent activity for the photodegradation of the organic dyes such as methylene blue (MB) and rose bengal (RB) under ultra violet (UV) light irradiation. The TG nanocomposite of TG 2.5 showed better photocatalytic performance than bare TiO{sub 2} nanoparticles and other composites. The enhanced activity of the composite material is attributed to the reduction in charge recombination and interaction of organic dyes with graphene. The decrease in charge recombination was evidenced from the photoluminescence (PL) spectra. The observed results suggest that the synthesized TG composites have a potential application to treat the industrial effluents, which contain organic dyes.

OSTI ID:
22492245
Journal Information:
AIP Advances, Vol. 5, Issue 12; Other Information: (c) 2015 Author(s); Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 2158-3226
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English