Pure rutile-phase TiO(2) (r-TiO(2)) was synthesized by a simple one pot experiment under hydrothermal condition using titanium (IV) n-butoxide as a Ti-precursor and HCl as a peptizer. The TiO(2) products were characterized by XRD, TEM, ESCA, and BET surface area measurement. The r-TiO(2) were rodlike in shape with average size of similar to 61 x 32nm at hydrothermal temperature of 220 degrees C for 10 h. Hydrothermal treatment at longer reaction time increased the tendency of crystal growth and also decreased the BET surface area. The degradation of methylene blue was selected as a test reaction to confer the photocatalytic activity of as-obtained r-TiO(2). The results showed a strong correlation between the structure evolution, particle size, and photocatalytic performance of r-TiO(2). Furthermore, the r-TiO(2)-based solar cell was prepared for the photovoltaic characteristics study, and the best efficiency of similar to 3.16% was obtained.
