Effect of non-ionic surfactant in the solvothermal synthesis of anatase TiO nanoplates with a high percentage of exposed {001} facets and its role in the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue dye.

The synthesis of anatase TiO nanoparticles with controlled morphology and increased {001} facets exposed without the presence of fluorine-derived substances is a challenge. Herein, we report a highly effective approach to fabricate anatase TiO nanoplates with exposed {001} facets and their exploitation as robust photocatalytic materials for dye remediation. These materials were synthesized under controlled hydrolysis and condensation reactions, using titanium (IV) n-butoxide in an ethanolic solution, with acetic and sulfuric acids, by a solvothermal method at 190 °C with or without the presence of the non-ionic surfactant Triton® X-100 and then characterized. During TiO crystal synthesis, the effect of a non-ionic surfactant on the TiO particle growth was investigated. Our results demonstrate that the proposed method can synthesize pure and crystalline anatase TiO square nanoplates that form nanostructured spheres with high surface area, uniformly sized mesopores, and exposed {001} facets. The presence of non-ionic surfactant increased the exposed {001} facets percentage of the formed nanoplates from 69 to 80%, decreased the crystallite thickness, but unaffected its crystalline phase and band gap energy. The kinetic constants (K e K) for the synthesized TiO anatase nanoplates are considerably higher than the commercial TiO anatase constant (K). The synthesized photocatalysts show higher efficiency in the photocatalytic removal of methylene blue (MB) than commercial TiO (for t = 120 min).