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Tuning anatase to rutile ratio in nanocrystalline titania enriched from sustainable beach-sand from Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh
Date
2023
Abstract
A sustainable source of titania (TiO2) is important in applications of photovoltaic devices, photocatalysts, sensors etc. Beach sand from Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh can be an excellent sustainable source of this titania as almost a quarter of it contains titania in the form of rutile and ilmenite. This study demonstrates the success of a sulfuric acid-based hydrometallurgical process in enriching titania in Cox’s Bazar Beach Sand. The route produces precursors that can be conveniently calcined into nanocrystalline phase-pure anatase or anatase/rutile composites. We used both bulk and surface characterization to determine phase purity, crystallite size as well as surface chemistry and morphology of the resulting anatase and rutile/anatase mixture. The proportion of anatase/rutile can be tuned by varying digestion times. This hydrometallurgical route can potentially lead to the scalable production of precursors used in producing high-performance nanocrystalline titania from a sustainable source of beach sand from Cox’s Bazar of Bangladesh.
Supervisor
Description
Publisher
Wiley and Sons Ltd
Citation
Surface and Interface Analysis, 2023, 55(6-7), pp. 526-535
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Tofail_2023_Tuning.pdf
Adobe PDF, 2.15 MB
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Funding Information
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support and facilities provided by Bangladesh Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (BCSIR), Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and the European Commission Erasmus International Credit Mobility between BUET and University of Limerick, Ireland