Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-11-2019
Journal
Current Nanoscience
Volume
15
Issue
6
First Page
606
Last Page
617
URL with Digital Object Identifier
https://doi.org/10.2174/1573413715666181212123137
Abstract
Background: Graphene-Titanium dioxide nano-composite forms a very promising material in the field of photo-electrochemical research.
Methods: In this study, a novel environment-friendly synthesis method was developed to produce well-distributed anatase nano-titanium dioxide spherical particles on the surface of graphene sheets. This novel method has great advantages over previously developed methods of producing graphenetitanium dioxide nanocomposites (GTNCs). High calcination temperature 650°C was used in the preparation of nano titanium dioxide, and chemical exfoliation for graphene synthesis and GTNC was performed by our novel method of depositing titanium dioxide nanoparticles on graphene sheets using a Y-shaped micro-reactor under a controlled pumping rate with minimal use of chemicals.
Results: The physiochemical and crystallographic properties of the GTNC were confirmed by TEM, XRD, FTIR and EDX measurements, confirming process repeatability. Spherical nano-titanium dioxide was produced in the anatase phase with very high crystallinity and small particle diameters ranging from 9 nm to 25 nm, also the as prepared graphene (RGO) exhibited minimal flake folding and a high carbon content of 81.28% with a low oxygen-to-carbon atomic ratio of 0.172 and GTNCs produced by our novel method had a superior loading content, a homogeneous distribution and a 96.6% higher content of titanium dioxide particles on the graphene sheets compared with GTNCs prepared with the one-pot method.
Conclusion: For its photoelectrochemical properties, chronoamperometry showed that GTNC sample (2) had a higher peak current of 60 μA compared with that of GTNC sample (1), which indicates that the separation and transfer of electron-hole pairs are better in the case of GTNC sample (2) and according to the LSV results, the generation of photocurrent in the samples can be observed through multiple on-off cycles, which indicates that the electrodes are stable and that the photocurrent is quite reversible.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Citation of this paper:
Nourwanda M. Serour, Ahmed S.E. Hammad, Ahmed H. El-Shazly, Dina A. El-Gayar and Shaaban A. Nosier, “Novel Green Micro-Synthesis of Graphene-Titanium Dioxide Nano- Composites with Photo-Electrochemical Properties”, Current Nanoscience (2019) 15: 606. https://doi.org/10.2174/1573413715666181212123137
Notes
This is a pre-print of the article. A final version published in Current Nanoscience by Bentham Science is available at: https://doi.org/10.2174/1573413715666181212123137 . The article was accepted for publication on December 8, 2018 and published in volume 15(6), 2019.