Development of morphology dependent titania nanomaterial for photo degradation of dyes

Titania nanomaterial flower structure is synthesized through the ionothermal route and is used for the degradation of sulfan blue (SB) through the photo catalysis process. The ionic liquid used is 1-butyl-3-methypyridium dicyanamide (BmpmDCN). The particle sizes and surface morphologies are characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Brunauer�Emmett�Teller (BET). Three types of titania have been compared for their degradation performance, namely commercial titania (TP), titania nanotube (TN), and titania flower (TF). The size of the particle is found to be approximately 33 nm from the FE�SEM analysis. The BET measures the highest surface area of 220 m2 g-1 and pore volume of 0.15 cm3 g-1 for the TF. The degradation of binary dye is more favorable in alkaline solution with pH 14 while varying the dosage of the commercial TiO2 from 0.025�0.2 g reveals an increase in the rate of degradation with optimum dosage is found to be 0.2 g. Results show that TF degradation rate is higher as compared to TP and TN. © 2014 Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland.