Morphological influence of TiO2 nanostructures (nanozigzag, nanohelics and nanorod) on photocatalytic degradation of organic dyes

Hierarchical nanostructures have drawn significant attention and incredible performance in photo driven chemical conversion area due to its unique physicochemical properties. Herein, we study the morphological influence of TiO2 nanostructures on photocatalytic degradation of different organic dyes methyl blue, methyl violet and methyl orange present in industrial wastewater. Nanorod, nanohelics and nanozigzag TiO2 nanofilms were fabricated by using galancing angle deposition technique (GLAD). TiO2 nanofilms were characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), and raman analysis. BET surface area analysis were carried out by using nitrogen adsorption desorption curves. The results show that TiO2 morphology had great influence on photocatalytic degradation of organic dyes due to difference in specific surface area and pore volume of nanostructures. The photocatalytic degradation experiments were carried out for three hours under UV-vis light irradiation. Catalysis recycling and organic dyes concentration influence were also studied. In case of high concentration of organic dyes, negligible degradation rate is observed. TiO2 nanozigzag films show better degradation performance than nanohelics and nanorod due to presence of large surface area for reaction, higher porosity with dispersion of active sites at different length scales of pores and presence of oxygen vacancies. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.