Decomposition of rhodamine 6G in the presence of titania coupling coupled with carbon source as photocatalyst under visible light excitation

Abstract

Heterogeneous photocatalytic degradation of N-containing R6G dye was achieved by visible light-activated carbon doped TiO2 (C-TiO2) nanoparticles, synthesized by a low-temperature wet-chemical technique using glucose as carbon source. The structural and physicochemical properties of C-TiO2 were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-vis DRS) and FT-IR spectroscopy. Compared with the pure TiO2, the carbon modified nanomaterials exhibited enhanced absorption in the broad visible-light region together with an apparent red shift in the optical absorption edge. The resulting carbon-doped TiO2 catalyst was employed as an effective photocatalyst for degradation of Rhodamine 6G (R6G) in aqueous solutions under visible light irradiation (λ > 420 nm). In addition, the intrinsic mechanism of visible light-induced photocatalytic oxidation of organic compounds on the carbon-doped titania was proposed and discussed.