One pot synthesis of nanosized anion doped TiO₂: Effect of irradiation of sound waves on surface morphology and optical properties

Commercialization of AOP's for remediation of pollutants from environmental matrix required the process to be operated by solar light. Semiconductor TiO₂ has emerged as an effective and preferred photocatalyst in the field of environmental photocatalysis due to its; (i) biological and chemical inertness (ii) resistance to chemical and photo corrosion, (iii) can absorb natural UV light due to appropriate energetic separation between its valence and conduction band. However, unfortunately the optical band gap of TiO₂ (3.0-3.23 eV) with absorption cut off ∼ 380 nm, enables it to harness only a small fraction (∼ 5%) of the entire solar spectrum. One of the current areas of research is modification of TiO₂ photocatalyst. In present paper one pot greener synthesis from titanium isopropoxide and hydroxylamine hydrochloride has been used as titanium and nitrogen precursor under ultrasonic waves. The as synthesized TiO₂ nanomaterials were dried at 100°C and further calcinated at different temperatures. The effect of reaction parameters such as ultrasonication time on the yield, surface morphology, spectroscopic data and optical properties was also investigated. The results confirm that the anatase phase is a main phase with a crystallite size of 35-77 nm and the calculated band gap of nanomaterials varies from 2.10-3.1 eV