Structure-tunable hydrothermal synthesis of composite TiO2@glucose carbon microspheres (TiO2@GCs) with enhanced performance in the photocatalytic removal of acid fuchsin (AF)

Abstract

In this study, we developed a hydrothermal method to prepare hybrid TiO₂@glucose carbon spheres (TiO₂@GCs) with controllable structures. The prepared products were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS). The results showed that the morphology of the as-synthesized TiO₂@GCs hybrid composites could be facilely controlled by varying the amount of titanium tetrachloride (TiCl₄). X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used to determine the crystallite size, composition, and phase purity. Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectra (UV-vis DRS) and BET specific surface area measurements (BET) were conducted to evaluate the surface functional compositions, light response ability and pore structure, respectively. Based on the observations made with different phase structures before and after hydrothermal treatment of the TiO₂@GCs precursor, a reasonable mechanism for the formation of TiO₂@GCs hybrid microspheres was proposed. Moreover, the as-synthesized TiO₂@GCs hybrids exhibited improved dye-adsorption capacity and enhanced photocatalytic ability, which could be assigned to the synergistic effect of the photocatalytic function of TiO₂ and the adsorption function of the carbon spheres. This novel synthetic approach provides a simple and flexible way to prepare TiO₂@GCs hybrid composites with controllable structures, and the TiO₂@GCs photocatalyst is expected to deliver a new engineering solution for the industrial dye-containing wastewater treatment process.