Physicochemical properties of different phases of titanium dioxide nanoparticles

ABSTRACT

The physicochemical properties of crystalline titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO2 NPs) were investigated by comparing amorphous (amTiO2 ), anatase (aTiO2 ), metaphase of anatase-rutile (arTiO2 ), and rutile (rTiO2 ) NPs, which were prepared at various calcination temperatures (100℃, 400℃, 600℃, and 900℃). X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses confirmed that the phase-transformed TiO2 had the characteristic features of crystallinity and average size. The surface chemical properties of the crystalline phases were different in the spectral analysis. As anatase transformed to the rutile phase, the band of the hydroxyl group at 3,600–3,100 cm –1decreased gradually, as assessed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). For ultraviolet-visible (UVVis) spectra, the maximum absorbance of anatase TiO2 NPs at 309 nm was blue-shifted to 290 nm at the rutile phase with reduced absorbance. Under the electric field of capillary electrophoresis (CE), TiO2 NPs in anatase migrated and detected as a broaden peak, whereas the rutile NPs did not. In addition, anatase showed the highest photocatalytic activity in an UV-irradiated dye degradation assay in the following order: aTiO2 > arTiO2 > rTiO2 . Overall, the phases of TiO2 NPs showed characteristic physicochemical properties regarding size, surface chemical properties, UV absorbance, CE migration, and photocatalytic activity.