characterization and photocatalytic activity of enhanced copper-silica-loaded titania prepared via hydrothermal method特性和增强copper-silica-loaded二氧化钛光催化活性的准备通过水热法.pdfVIP

Hindawi Publishing Corporation Journal of Nanomaterials Volume 2011, Article ID 239289, 8 pages doi:10.1155/2011/239289 Research Article Characterization and Photocatalytic Activity of Enhanced Copper-Silica-Loaded Titania Prepared via Hydrothermal Method Ramarao Poliah and Srimala Sreekantan School of Materials and Mineral Resources Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Engineering Campus, Nibong Tebal, Seberang Perai Selatan, 14300 Pulau Pinang, Malaysia Correspondence should be addressed to Srimala Sreekantan, srimala@eng.usm.my Received 11 March 2011; Revised 24 May 2011; Accepted 13 July 2011 Academic Editor: Edward Andrew Payzant Copyright © 2011 R. Poliah and S. Sreekantan. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. TiO nanopowder, loaded with SiO and Cu-SiO , was prepared under both acidic and basic environments via the hydrothermal 2 2 2 method. The morphology and structure of TiO2 were studied by XRD, TEM, and FT-IR. The photocatalytic activity of samples was studied by monitoring the degradation of methyl orange, using a UV-visible spectrophotometer. The effect of Ti/Si ratio, pH, and Cu2+ addition on the formation of TiO2 and its photocatalytic activity was investigated in detail. The results show that a large sur- face area and a high surface acidity were important factors to achieve good TiO2 performance. The presence of Ti-O-Si bonding en- hanced surface acidity, which improved its ability to adsorb more hydroxyl radicals and increased its surface area. The addition of 0.1 mol% concentration of Cu2+ and 25 mol