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

Generally, anatase titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) exhibit better photocatalytic activity than rutile TiO 2 . In the present work, Ag modified TiO 2 were prepared by a simple sol–gel method and the photocatalytic activity of pure TiO 2 was enhanced via adding Ag. Moreover, Ag modified rutile TiO 2 shows the best photocatalytic activity compared to Ag modified anatase TiO 2 and pure TiO 2 owing to the lowest recombination rate of photogenerated pairs and the most surface hydroxyl groups.