Facile synthesis and study of photocatalytic properties of TiO2-Ag-Ce nanocomposites

In this study, nanocomposites consisting of TiO2-Ag-Ce with stoichiometric ratio of 1, 3 and 5 wt% Ag and 10 wt % Ce (constant) as photocatalyst were prepared and investigated. Based on the crystallite phase, the thermal calcination temperature was set at 500 degrees C. X-ray diffraction, FE-SEM, EDS analysis, TEM and FTIR were used to characterize the synthesized powders. The obtained results showed that most of the samples exhibited anatase phase and crystallite size was < 100 nm. Taking into account the photocatalytic properties of nanocomposites on the methylene blue (C37H27N3Na2O9S3), the results showed that nanocomposites with 5 wt% Ag and a pollutant model concentration of 10 ppm at PH = 9 exhibited 82 +/- 1% destruction of the pollutant, giving the best performance as nanocatalysts. Moreover, the kinetic result of the photocatalyst was in agreement with the destruction result, while the rate constant was the lowest value.

Automated summary

Nanocomposites of TiO2-Ag-Ce with different percentages of Ag were prepared and characterized. The nanocomposite with 5%Ag showed the best catalytic performance for methylene blue.