Synthesis and characterization of biomimetic titanium dioxide

Abstract

Synthesis of titanium dioxide has become popular nowadays. Biomimetic method has been demonstrated to be very effective ways for synthesizing the titanium dioxide as it low cost and environmental friendly. In this research, TiO2 that used as catalyst was synthesized from hibiscus pollen and coconut husk as a templates through simple sol-gel method. Both pollen-templated TiO2 and husk-templated TiO2 were characterized by using XRD, SEM and BET. The photocatalytic activity of the synthesized TiO2 were also evaluated. Characterization results shows the both pollen-templated TiO2 and husk-templated TiO2 were purely containing TiO2. The photocatalytic activity was taken place under effect of solar light irradiation.