Hydrothermal Synthesis of rGO-TiO2 Composites as High-Performance UV Photocatalysts for Ethylparaben Degradation Ruidíaz Martínez, Miller Rivera Utrilla, José Sánchez Polo, Manuel rGO-TiO2 nanocomposites Ethylparaben Ultraviolete radiation Photocatalysis This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and competitiveness and by FEDER (Project CTQ2016-80978-C2−1-R). M.R.-M. thanks to the Asociación Universitaria Iberoamericana de Postgrado (AUIP) and the University of Jaen for the grant awarded and the financial support. A series of reduced graphene oxide-TiO2 composites (rGO-TiO2) were prepared by hydrothermal treatment using graphite and titanium isopropoxide as raw materials. The structural, surface, electronic, and optical properties of the prepared composites were extensively characterized by N2 adsorption, FTIR, XRD, XPS, Raman spectroscopy, and DRS. GO was found to be effectively reduced and TiO2 to be in pure anatase phase in all composites obtained. Finally, experiments were performed to evaluate the effectiveness of these new materials as photocatalysts in the degradation of ethylparaben (EtP) by UV radiation. According to the band-gap energies obtained (ranging between 3.09 eV for 4% rGO-TiO2 to 2.55 eV for 30% rGO-TiO2), the rGO-TiO2 composites behave as semiconductor materials. The photocatalytic activity is highest with a rGO content of 7 wt % (7% rGO-TiO2), being higher than observed for pure TiO2 (Eg = 3.20 eV) and achieving 98.6% EtP degradation after only 40 min of treatment. However, the degradation yield decreases with higher percentages of rGO. Comparison with rGO-P25 composites showed that a better photocatalytic performance in EtP degradation is obtained with synthesized TiO2 (rGO-TiO2), probably due to the presence of the rutile phase (14.1 wt %) in commercial P25. 2020-07-28T11:53:41Z 2020-07-28T11:53:41Z 2020-05 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Ruidíaz-Martínez, M., Álvarez, M. A., López-Ramón, M. V., Cruz-Quesada, G., Rivera-Utrilla, J., & Sánchez-Polo, M. (2020). Hydrothermal Synthesis of rGO-TiO2 Composites as High-Performance UV Photocatalysts for Ethylparaben Degradation. Catalysts, 10(5), 520. [DOI: 10.3390/catal10050520] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/63172 10.3390/catal10050520 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 3.0 España MDPI