Preparation and characterisation of Ag modified rutile titanium dioxide and its photocatalytic activity under simulated solar light

Generally, anatase titanium dioxide (TiO2) exhibit better photocatalytic activity than rutile TiO2. In the present work, Ag modified TiO2 were prepared by a simple sol–gel method and the photocatalytic activity of pure TiO2 was enhanced via adding Ag. Moreover, Ag modified rutile TiO2 shows the best photocatalytic activity compared to Ag modified anatase TiO2 and pure TiO2 owing to the lowest recombination rate of photogenerated pairs and the most surface hydroxyl groups.