Glycol 400 assisted preparation of high contact surface TiO2/GO nanocomposites for photocatalytic degradation Rhodamine B.

TiO2/graphene oxide (GO) nanocomposites with high contact interface were prepared with glycol 400 (PEG400) served as dispersant. This nanocomposite exhibits improved photocatalytic efficiency in contrast with the nanocomposite prepared without PEG400. In this work, the photocatalytic performance was investigated by observing the degradation rate of Rhodamine B (RhB). And it is found that the mass ratios of GO in nanocomposites plays an important role. When the mass ratio of GO reached 45%, the photocatalytic performance of the nanocomposites reached the highest, which is ~72%. Moreover, the photocatalytic mechanism was studied through theoretical calculations, which can be summarized as follows: 1. The presence of GO decreases the band gap of TiO2 nanoparticles. 2. GO inhibits the the recombination of photogenerated electron-hole pair. 3. GO improves the adsorption capacity of TiO2 nanoparticles for RhB. This work promoted the application of TiO2/GO nanocomposites in wastewater treatment.