Photo-degradation of Acid-red 3B dye catalyzed by TiO2 nanotubes

TiO2 nanotube precursor was synthesized by the hydrothermal reaction of TiO2 powders with NaOH solution and the properties of the nanotube materials were tuned using different post-treatments. Transmission electron microscopic (TEM) observation revealed that the nanotube could be obtained by either a direct rinse with acid solution or rinse with distilled water followed by acid solution. The results of X-ray diffraction (XRD) and inductively coupled plasma (ICP) analysis indicated that the nanotube material was composed of H2Ti2O5 x H2O. In addition, the photocatalytic activities of the resulting catalysts were found to be strongly dependent on the post-treatment. The results of the photocatalytic reaction showed that the degradation of Acid-red 3B dye fitted pseudo-zero-order kinetics and TiO2 nanotube prepared under direct rinse with acid solution exhibited a higher catalytic efficiency compared to other catalysts.