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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Chem. Eng.
Sec. Environmental Chemical Engineering
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fceng.2024.1352283
This article is part of the Research Topic Sustainable Adsorbents and Photosensitizers for the Removal and (Photo)degradation of Emerging Organic Pollutants from Water View all 3 articles

Influence of surfactant on sol-gel-prepared TiO2: characterization and photocatalytic dye degradation in water

Provisionally accepted
Andile Mkhohlakali Andile Mkhohlakali 1*Tien-Chien Jen Tien-Chien Jen 2*Kabelo Ledwaba Kabelo Ledwaba 3*Sivuyisiwe Mapukata Sivuyisiwe Mapukata 1Happy Mabowa Happy Mabowa 1*Mokgehle R Letsoalo Mokgehle R Letsoalo 1*Napo Ntsasa Napo Ntsasa 1*James Tshilongo James Tshilongo 1
  • 1 Mintek, Johannesburg, South Africa
  • 2 University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
  • 3 University of South Africa, Pretoria, South Africa

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nano-powder was prepared using a sol-gel process with and without surfactant. A typical nonionic surfactant (Triton X-100) was used during the process. The phase compositions of TiO2 and surfactant-assisted TiO2 (TiO2-sa) were investigated by FTIR, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope-energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) was used to determine the nanopowder's specific surface area and pore size distribution. Moreover, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Selected Area Electron Diffraction (SAED) analysis exhibited particle size in the range of 65-85 nm and polycrystalline phase, respectively. UV-vis spectrophotometer showed high absorption dominating the visible region (438-450 nm) with relative redshift and reduced bandgap from 2.98 to 3.12 eV upon adding surfactant on TiO2. X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) exhibits high purity TiO2 with more than 82% composition with the lowest relative standard deviation (RSD %). Moreover, the photoluminescence (PL) of TiO2-sa showed enhanced oxygen vacancies and surface defects which reduce the direct electron-photon (e/h+) pair recombination. TiO2-sa illustrated promising characteristic features of an active photocatalyst for the degradation of dye pollutants.

    Keywords: sol-gel, Surfactant assisted, TiO2 nano-powder, Optical properties, MB degradation

    Received: 07 Dec 2023; Accepted: 13 Jun 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Mkhohlakali, Jen, Ledwaba, Mapukata, Mabowa, Letsoalo, Ntsasa and Tshilongo. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Andile Mkhohlakali, Mintek, Johannesburg, South Africa
    Tien-Chien Jen, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, 2092, Gauteng, South Africa
    Kabelo Ledwaba, University of South Africa, Pretoria, 0003, South Africa
    Happy Mabowa, Mintek, Johannesburg, South Africa
    Mokgehle R Letsoalo, Mintek, Johannesburg, South Africa
    Napo Ntsasa, Mintek, Johannesburg, South Africa

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