Enhanced photocatalytic activity of titanium oxide nanotubes after heating treatment

Meinan Liu, Jin Chang, Hongxia Wang, Cheng Yan, John Bell

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Titanium oxide nanotubes were obtained by an electrochemical anodization method. Scanning electron microscope results demonstrate that the diameter of the tubes is about 120 nm and the length of the tubes is around 13 μm. Transmission electron microscope results indicate that the nanotubes are assembled by numerous nanoparticles and tube-like structure remains well after heat treatment at 400-600 °C. The photocatalysis performance of the nanotubes was evaluated in terms of the decomposition rate of methyl orange under UV irradiation. The results show that the photocatalytic activity was enhanced through the heating treatment of the nanotubes, and the nanotubes heated at 600 °C exhibits the best photocatalytic activity. X-ray diffraction patterns indicate that there is no phase transformation during the heat treatment. Therefore, the enhanced activity can be attributed to the improvement of nanotubes crystallinity, which may provide more insights about the effect of the crystallinity on the photocatalytic performance.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1141-1144
Number of pages4
JournalJournal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology
Volume13
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2013
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Heating treatment
  • Nanotubes
  • Photocatalytic decomposition
  • Titanium oxide

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