A Credible Role of Copper Oxide on Structure of Nanocrystalline Mesoporous Titanium Dioxide

S. Rahimnejad, S. Rahman Setayesh and M.R. Gholami*

Department of Chemistry, Sharif University of Technology, Azadi Ave., P.O. Box 11365-9516, Tehran, Iran

Copper oxide-titania catalysts with nanocrystalline mesoporous structure were prepared by sol-gel technique using tetra isopropyl ortho titanate (TiPT) as the inorganic precursor and amino-2 ethanol as the swelling agent. Characterization was performed using X-ray diffraction (XRD), fourier transformed infrared spectra (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), diffuse reflectance UV-Vis spectroscopy (DRS), and N₂ adsorption-desorption measurements. It was found that CuO (0.025-0.1 mol ratio) has some effect on the particle size, surface area, pore-volume, pore-diameter, crystallinity of the particles, and crystalline phase of TiO₂ nanocrystalline. The results indicated that 0.1 CuO-TiO₂ had higher surface area and total pore volume among all CuO-TiO₂ samples. The SBET value of 0.1 mol ratio CuO-load TiO₂ sample is approximately similar to that of Degussa P25 while its pore volume (0.1198 cm3 g-1) is larger than Degussa P25 due to production of large number of pores. Therefore, the physical property of 0.1 CuO-TiO₂ catalyst is comparable with Degussa P25.At 823K, the 0.1 mol ratio CuO-load TiO₂ sample shows the phase transformation from anatase to rutile in the ratio of 1:1.1. The synthesized CuO-TiO₂ nanocrystalline will be able to show photocatalytic reaction under visible light.

Keywords: TiO₂, CuO, Mesoporous, Nanocrystalline