Preparation of nanostructured crystalline titanium dioxide (TiO2) by Sol-Gel technique

Abstract

The aim of this work is to synthesize anatase titanium dioxide via sol-gel technique. Titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) was directly hydrolyzed with water in various volume ratios (1:4 1:6 and 1:8) without co-reactant. The calcination was performed at the temperature in range of 100-500oC. The X- ray diffraction (XRD) analysis, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) technique and BET specific surface area analysis were used to obtained samples. It was found that the best condition was at the TiCl4: H2O volume ratio of 1:8 and calcined temperature of 500oC. At this condition nanostructured anatase with ca 10-15 nm and SSA 62.47 m2/g was successfully synthesized. The synthesized TiO2 had SSA higher than that of TiO2 P25 by 24.73%. This result revealed that the sol-gel methodis effective for the laboratory scale preparation of TiO2 with a better property as compared to the commercial TiO2 P25.