Evaluation of the impact of alkyl silane entity (APTES) on photocatalyst (TiO2) and their photocatalytic degradation of organic compounds for environmental remediation.

Environmental pollution by diverse organic pollutants is a serious issue facing humanity, and the scientific community is working hard to find a solution to climatic change due to pollution. Along the same lines, we have tried to find a material/method which is economical and less laborious for achieving the same desired objectives. In this work, the surface modification of titanium dioxide to be used as a photocatalyst was carried out with different concentrations of alkyl silane agent APTES (3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane) and studied their impact on the degradation of representative compound, i.e., methylene blue. The surface-modified TiO2-APTES nanoparticles were obtained via the solvothermal process. The APTES in different molar (0.21-0.41 M) concentrations was obtained by dissolving APTES in ethanol. The obtained samples were characterized through Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), scanning electron microscopy, and UV-visible spectroscopy. The photocatalytic activity was inferred from the degradation ability of functionalized nanoparticles for methylene blue and evaluated by UV-visible spectroscopy. Our results demonstrated a significant 70% degradation rate of methylene blue.