Titania nanostructures for environmental remediation

Nano-dimensioned titania is attracting increasing interest, owing to its unique physiochemical properties, and widespread applications - solar energy conversion, sensors, photochromic devices, photocatalysis, and environmental remediation. The performance for a given application depends on the crystalline structure, morphology, and size of the material. In this chapter, we report the synthesis - via an aqueous sol-gel method - of nanostructured titania, and Ag-doped-titania. The optical and photochromic properties of the powders were investigated by diffuse reflectance spectroscopy; while quantitative phase analysis was performed by means of the Rietveld-RIR method, performed using Xray powder diffraction data. The photocatalytic activity of the prepared samples was assessed in liquid-solid phase, under UV- and visible-light irradiation, monitoring the degradation of an organic dye. Antibacterial tests were also performed, against both Gram-positive and Gram-negative strains - MRSA and E. coli, respectively.