Synthesis and characterizations of rutile-TiO2 nanoparticles derived from chitin for potential photocatalytic applications

Single phase rutile Titanium II Oxide (TiO2) nanoparticles were successfully synthesized by wet chemical method using Chitin and TiCl3 as precursor; and the precipitates obtained, dried at 80 degrees C for 10 min. The as synthesized wrutile phase TiO2 was characterized by x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye was studied under UV light irradiation using the TiO2 derived from chitin for different load catalyst. The SEM image and Scherrer calculation using FWHM of the XRD peaks confirmed that the as synthesized TiO2 is spherical, highly crystallinity and nanostructured.