Facile preparation of TiO2-polyvinyl alcohol hybrid nanoparticles with improved visible light photocatalytic activity

Abstract Hybrid inorganic/organic core/shell nanoparticles were prepared through a two step synthesis procedure. In the first step, pure anatase TiO 2 nanoparticles were synthesized though a rapid microwave assisted non-aqueous route. Then, the obtained titania nanoparticles were coated with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) using a simple solution method followed by relatively low temperature treatment. The PVA-coated titania nanoparticles samples were prepared at different TiO 2 -PVA weight ratio and they were characterized using X-Ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. Photocatalytic performance was also evaluated for all samples and the results indicated that TiO 2 :PVA weight ratio was a key factor to obtain an improvement of the photocatalytic activity with respect to bare TiO 2 nanoparticles, since PVA concentration influenced the surface area and the aggregation of nanoparticles and the thickness of the coating layer. This inexpensive system provides a simple, quick and effective approach which allows to obtain core/shell hybrid nanostructures.