Abstract:
Titanium dioxide is manufactured by processing naturally occurring titanium containing rutile (TiO2)
or ilmenite (FeTiO3) minerals. Sri Lanka has vast deposits of ilmenite which is the major raw material in TiO2
production. However, Sri Lanka currently does not produce any type of value added TiO2 pigments. With the
growth of nanotechnology, nano-TiO2 is now produced worldwide using different methods varying the particle
size from 1 nm to 100 nm. Nano-TiO2 has the tightly controlled particle size that increases both the refractive
index and light scattering properties as a result of the uniform particle size distribution and additional surface
area. Nano-TiO2 is particularly interesting in UV resistant surface coatings where it can act as a UV reflector.
Because of the higher photocatalytic activity nano-TiO2 can be used for anti-fogging coatings where nano-TiO2
incorporated into outdoor building materials can substantially reduce concentrations of airborne pollutants such
as volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides and as photocatalyst coating which assist in deactivation of
bio-contaminants. In this investigation nano-TiO2 and pigmentary TiO2 were synthesized using titanyl sulfate
precursor, which can easily be produced by Sri Lankan ilmenite with sulfuric acid according to the sulfate
process. Synthesized nano-TiO2 was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, scanning
transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) methods. The
photocatalytic activity of nano-TiO2 was assessed by the degradation of bromothymol blue in aqueous solution.
Nano-TiO2 coated on glass showed a higher photocatalytic activity and self cleaning effect that can effectively
be used in building envelops
