Improvement the wastewater purification by TiO2 nanotube arrays: The effect of etching-step on the photo-generated charge carriers and photocatalytic activity of anodic TiO2 nanotubes

The current study demonstrates how the etching step in anodization process effects on the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nanotubes. In this regard, the TiO2 nanotubes were made by one-step and two-step anodization process on two different substrates Ti and etched-Ti foils, respectively. The results revealed that two-step anodization process is a beneficial way to prepare highly well-organized structure and regular surface. The two-step anodization by an enhancement in the fluoride ions diffusion led to a decrease in nanotubes' porosity and an increment in the nanotubes' surface area, a factor of roughness, and the ratio of length to diameter, respectively. As a consequence of the improvement in geometrical properties, the two-step TiO2 nanotubes led to the intensification of photocurrent density (from 0.383 to 0.677 mA cm(-2)) and photoconversion efficiency (from 0.18% to 0.29%) in comparison with the one-step nanotubes, respectively. Further, a synergetic impact of the photoelectrochemical measurement and photocatalytic process was observed. The degradation efficiencies of 2,4-dichlorophenol by two-step nanotubes increased from 47 to 55% under visible light, and from 58 to72% under UV irradiation, which it was attributed to more light harvesting, more photo-generated electrons, higher separation efficiency and improvement in geometrical properties. Furthermore, the kinetic study showed that the reactions follow first-order kinetics and the reaction rate constants by two-step nanotubes are 1.25 and 1.44 times as great as those of one-step nanotubes under visible and UV irradiation, respectively. Moreover, the reusability tests showed that 2-step TiO2 nanotubes has good stability and is active even up to the Fifth run.