Microstrcture Characterization and Properties of TiO2/α-FeOOH Nanocomposites

A series of TiO2/α-FeOOH nanocomposites were prepared by hydrolysis precipitation method at different temperatures using TiCl4 as Ti source and α-FeOOH as support. The phase composition, morphology, microstructure and optical properties of the samples were investigated by XRD, HRTEM, STEM and UV-DRS. The results show that with the temperature gradually increasing from 30 o 90 the core-shell structure first gets better and then worse, and the best core-shell structure is formed at 45 The shell is composed of fine grains of rutile TiO2 and the large grain of α-FeOOH serves as the core, and the nanocomposites coated continuous and dense. The interaction between TiO2 and α-FeOOH is not only physical adsorption, a coherent lattice structure is formed at the interface between TiO2 and α-FeOOH, which leads to a large lattice distortion and a good composite structure. UV-DRS results show that the largest red shift of absorption peak is observed for the composite with good core-shell structure, indicating that the TiO2/α-FeOOH nanocomposites can greatly expand the range of spectral response and thus improve the utilization of sunlight.