Influence of heat treatment on thermally-reduced graphene oxide/TiO2 composites for photocatalytic applications

Thermally-reduced graphene oxide/TiO2 composites (TRGO/Ti) were prepared by the thermal reduction of graphene oxide/TiO2 composite that was obtained from a simple, environmentally friendly, one-step colloidal blending method. The changes in structural and textural properties as well as their corresponding photocatalytic activities were investigated as a function of calcination temperature. The presence of stacked TRGO sheets significantly retarded both the aggregation and the crystalline phase transformation of TiO2 as increasing the temperature from 200 to 600 °C. TRGO/Ti composites exhibited higher photocatalytic activity for the degradation of methylene blue in comparison with pure TiO2 due to the increase in specific surface area and the formation of π-π conjugations between dye compounds and aromatic regions of TRGO. However, increasing the calcination temperature resulted in the lower photoactivity and slower kinetics, which can be ascribed to the decrease in surface area, the reduction of oxygen vacancies, and the loss of functional groups at the edges or on the basal planes of the TRGO sheets.