Synthesis and characterization of Fe_2TiO_5 nanoparticles through a sol-gel method and its photocatalyst applications

摘要

A novel modified sol-gel method was used in order to synthesize of Fe_2TiO_5 nanoparticles with aid of Fe(NO_3)_3·9H_2O and Ti(OC_3H_7)_4 as the starting reagents in the presence of ethanol as the solvent. To the best of author knowledge, it is first time that oxalic acid was used as a chilate agent in produce Fe_2TiO_5 nanoparticles. Besides, to examine the effect of different surfactants such as oleic acid, oleylamine, sodium dodecyl sulfate and cetyltrimethylammonium bromide on the particle size of final products several tests were performed. The as-synthesized Fe_2TiO_5 nanoparticle was utilized as photocatalyst for decolorisation of Rhodamine-B (RhB) and Methylen blue (MB) to investigate its light harvesting application. The photocatalyst results reveal that the maximum decol-orization of 93 and 95 % for RhB and MB occurred with Fe_2TiO_5 nanoparticle catalyst in 40 min of reaction time under ultraviolet light irradiation, respectively.