Photocatalytic degradation of Eriochrome Black T dye using well-crystalline anatase TiO2 nanoparticles

Well-crystalline anatase TiO2 nanoparticles were prepared by facile solution process and characterized in terms of their morphological, structural, optical and photocatalytic properties. The detailed studies confirmed that the as-synthesized nanoparticles are well-crystalline, grown in high density and exhibiting good optical properties. For photocatalytic degradation, Eriochrome Black T (EBT) dye was used as a model compound and about 82% of photo-degradation of EBT dye was achieved in 90 min under UV light irradiation. The kinetic studies revealed that EBT photo-degradation follows pseudo-first order reaction kinetics and rate constant was found to be 0.017 min-1. In addition to this, by comparing the photocatalytic performance with other commercially available catalysts (PC-50, PC-500, commercial ZnO), it was observed that the as-synthesized TiO2 nanoparticles exhibited superior photocatalytic performance. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.