Effectiveness of photocatalysis of MMT-supported TiO2 and TiO2 nanotubes for rhodamine B degradation

The aim of this paper is to synthesize montmorillonite/TiO2-nanoparticles (MMT/TiO2 and montmorillonite/TiO2-nanotubes (MMT/TiO2-NTs) photocatalysts through a simple wet agitation method based on TiO2 nanoparticles and MMT. They are likely to accumulate the effect of adsorption and photodegradation. Then, the photocatalysts are applied to degrade the rhodamine B in dye effluents. The structural characterizations of photocatalysts are investigated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The photocatalytic activities and effectiveness of photocatalysts are evaluated through rhodamine B degradation at different concentrations under dark and UV-C irradiation conditions. The results show that the synthesized TiO2-NTs have an average tube diameter of 5 nm and a tube length at least about 110 nm, which are intercalated into MMT sheets in MMT/TiO2-NTs photocatalyst. Meanwhile, TiO2 nanoparticles are immobilized on the surface of MMT sheets in the MMT/TiO2 photocatalyst. The photocatalytic effectiveness of rhodamine B degradation of TiO2-NTs shows a significantly enhance compared to that of TiO2 nanoparticles. However, photocatalytic performance of MMT/TiO2-NTs is lower than that of MMT/TiO2. The degradation effectiveness of MMT/TiO2 photocatalyst reaches to 100% for 3 ppm and 90% at 10 ppm of rhodamine B, while these values are 97.5% and 85.5%, respectively, recorded for MMT/TiO2-NTs. •MMT/TiO2 and MMT/TiO2-NTs are successfully synthesized with high photocatalytic activities.•MMT/TiO2 and MMT/TiO2-NTs photocatalysts showed an excellent rhodamine B degradation.•Photocatalytic efficiency reached to 97.5% and 100% for MMT/TiO2-NTs and MMT/TiO2.•The localization of TiO2 at the surface of MMT sheets maximized the efficiency.