Synthesis and Characterization of Ag-Decorated TiO2 Nanoparticles for Photocatalytic Application

TiO2 nanoparticles (TiO2) and Ag-doped TiO2 nanocomposites (Ag-TiO2) were synthesized by the Sol-Gel process using titanium tetra isopropoxide as TiO2 and AgNO3 as Ag precursors, respectively. The synthesized nanocomposites were characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, FT-IR, and UV­-Visible analysis. The XRD results show that Ag doping increases the grain size from 22 nm to 36 nm. From the UV-Visible spectra, the redshift in absorbance was observed, which indicates the increase in grain size and it reduces the bandgap. The TEM analysis shows that all the particles are exhibited in the nanometer range. The synthesized nanoparticles show good photocatalytic activity, and they decompose the methyl orange dye within 5 hours.