Fabrication of mesoporous titanium dioxide using azadirachta indica leaves extract towards visible-light-driven photocatalytic dye degradation

Abstract

An environmental benign, straightforward and financially savvy technique has been developed to fabricate mesoporous titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanostructure utilizing Azadirachta indica leaves extract. The aqueous extract of Azadirachta indica leaves act as a template which upon calcination at high temperature generated mesoporous TiO2. The structure of the mesoporous TiO2 was confirmed by X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy and isothermal gas adsorption-desorption (BET). It has been found that the crystallinity and pore diameter of mesoporous titanium dioxide (TiO2) depends on the amount of Azadirachta indica leaves extract, resulting in enhanced crystallinity with an increasing amount of Azadirachta indica leaves extract. The pore diameter was found somewhere in the range from 16.67 to 46.19 nm, and the BET surface area varies from 8.55–157.35 m2/g.. Finally, we have explored as-synthesized mesoporous TiO2 for visible-light-driven photocatalytic degradation of rhodamine 6 G (R6 G) dye. It is noteworthy that the photocatalytic degradation rate of R6 G in presence of as-synthesized mesoporous TiO2 depends only on the amount of plant extract used and not on temperature and other factors. This is presumably due to the increased optical band gap of TiO2. - 2020 Elsevier B.V.