Relationship between Synthesis Conditions and Photocatalytic Activity of Nanocrystalline TiO2

The degradation efficiency of methylene blue by TiO2 nanoparticles, which were synthesized under different synthesis conditions (i.e., molar ratio of water and titanium tetraisopropoxide (TTIP), pH, and calcination temperature) in a sol-gel process, was systematically investigated. The results showed that increasing the molar ratio of water and TTIP led to the enhanced photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nanoparticles, which were likely attributed to the increased specific surface area of TiO2 nanoparticles synthesized with high molar ratio. The results were supported by the relative increase in the size of interaggregated pores of the aggregated TiO2 nanoparticles. The best photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nanoparticles was observed at acidic synthesis conditions; however, the results were not consistent with physical properties for the crystallinity and the crystallite size of TiO2 nanoparticles but rather explained by the presence of abundant hydroxyl groups and water molecules existing on the surface of TiO2 under acidic synthesis environments. Furthermore, methylene blue degradation experiments revealed that the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nanoparticles was maximized at the calcination temperature of 700°C. The trend was likely due to the combined effect of the anatase crystallinity which showed the highest value at 700°C and the crystallite size/specific surface area which did not excessively increase up to 700°C