Abstract
A comparative study of titanium oxide powders prepared by precipitation and sol-gel methods was conducted. Titanium tetrachloride and ammonium hydroxide were used in the hydrolysis of Ti in the precipitation process. For the sol-gel method, titanium tetra-isopropoxide was used as the starting material. Hydrolysis followed by peptization were performed in an acidic alcohol solution. Powders obtained from the two preparation methods were calcined at 400℃ to obtain TiO_2 powders. XRD, TEM, SEM and BET results indicated differences in crystal structure, morphology and surface areas of the powder prepared by different techniques. This, hence, resulted in different photocatalytic activities of the powders tested using methylene blue excited with UV light at the wavelength of 661 nm.
