Photocatalytic Mineralization of Methylene BlueAqueous Solutions by Ag/TiO2 Nano Composite

Nanocomposite of ag/tio2and nanocrystalline tio2 were prepared by using ticl4 as a precursor in a simple sol-gel process. the prepared photo-catalysts were characterized by x-ray diffraction (xrd), scanning electron micrographs (sem), energy dispersive x-ray microanalysis (edx), transmission electron microscopy (tem) and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (drs). a complete and effective photocatalytic degradation of a cationic aromatic dye, methylene blue, in aqueous solutions has been carried out using nanocomposite of ag/tio2and nanocrystalline tio2 under uv c light irradiation. experiments were conducted to compare the photocatalytic activities of nanocomposite ag/tio2 with nanocrystalline tio2. the photoreactions were followed by monitoring the degradation of the dye as a function of irradiation time, in the presence of the nanophoto- atalysts, by the visible/ultraviolet absorption spectroscopy. it has been found that the presence of silver in tio2nanoparticles reduces the duration of complete photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue by 20% due to the enhancement of electron-hole separation by the electron trapping of silver particles.