Abstract

Titanium dioxide has good optical properties and is mostly utilized in environmental clean-up as photocatalyst but its agglomeration in water and difficulties in separation at nano scale limits its industrial applications. Pure TiO2 nano particles with BET specific surface area of 108.98m2/g and XRD crystallite size of 9.66nm were synthesized using sol-gel method. The synthesized TiO2 was immobilized on the borosilicate glass tube by dip-coating method using coating enhancer. The synthesized samples were calcined at 450oC at 2 h. The samples were characterized using some of the nano particle characterization techniques: X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), UV-Vis Diffused Reflectance Spectroscopy (UV-Vis DRS), Brunauer- Emmitt-Teller (BET), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX), ThermoGrametric Analysis (TGA). The total average thickness of the coating after calcination at 450oC is 913.67 nm and the thickness after ultrasonicating for 1 h in an ultra sonicator (Cardiff Cf 21YY-021914) were determined as the average step height of 172.33nm using a Bruker Dektak XT Stylus Profilometer (Alpha-Step IQ). The thin coating of 18.8% of the photocatalyst were obtained after ultrasonication showing the effectiveness of coating enhancer to immobilized TiO2 on borosilicate glass tube and can have its application in photocatalytic degradation mostly in wastewater treatment plant. Immobilizing titania photocatalyst (TiO2) with addition of tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) as coating enhancer increases the attachment strength of the TiO2 to the wall of borosilicate glass and therefore prevents TiO2 from agglomerating when in contact with water.