Characterization of Structural, Optical and Hydrophilicity properties of TiO_2 Nano-Powder Synthesized by Sol-Gel Method

In this paper, titanium dioxide nano-powder was synthesized by sol-gel method in acidic medium. the microstructure, optical band gap, and hydrophilicity of the sample were studied. optical band gap of titanium dioxide was probed via diffuse reflectance spectra (drs). contact angle was measured to investigate hydrophilicity of the powder. xrd analysis was used to study the crystalline structure of the sample. scanning electron microscopy (sem) and transmission electron microscopy (tem) were also performed. the results showed high crystallinity of the sample with average crystallite size of ~21 nm. besides, the ratio of anatase to rutile phase demonstrated that the amount of anatase in the sample was seven times greater than that of rutile. the obtained optical band gap for the sample was 3.35 ev with direct linear fitness in tauc equation. contact angle (ca) measurements indicated superhydrophilicity after uv-radiation for 40 minutes. the results revealed that even though anatase phase was dominant, the existence of rutile phase led to the improvement of both hydrophilicity and photocatalytic properties.