Comparison of TiO2 nanoparticles and Fe3O4@TiO2 core-shell nanostructures and their photocatalytic activity

The catalytic activity is very important in the applications of gas sensors and pollutant degradation because this can increase the reactivity of sensing films and degradation rate. In this paper, we report TiO
2
and Fe
3
O
4
nanoparticles (NP’s) prepared by hydrothermal and coprecipitation methods, respectively, as well as, Fe
3
O
4
@TiO
2
core-shell nanostructures fabricated by the hydrothermal method. The morphological and structural characterization were studied by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). TiO
2
nanoparticles (NP’s-TiO
2
) and Fe
3
O
4
core-shell nanostructures were used as catalysts to degrade methylene blue (MB). The results showed that Fe
3
O
4
@TiO
2
core-shell nanostructures have good catalytic performance because of their grainy texture, which increases the active sites.