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

Hybrid inorganic/organic core/shell nanoparticles were prepared through a two step synthesis procedure. In the first step, pure anatase TiO2 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 TiO2–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 TiO2:PVA weight ratio was a key factor to obtain an improvement of the photocatalytic activity with respect to bare TiO2 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.