Electronic and photocatalytic properties of N, V co-doped anatase TiO2

Abstract

Photocatalytic technology has good stability and ecological friendliness which is used to treat organic pollutants in wastewater. In this paper, TiO2, 1.5%V–TiO2 and N, V co-doped TiO2 were synthesized by hydrothermal method for photocatalytic degradation of tetracycline. Meanwhile, XRD, HRTEM, SEM, FT-IR, XPS, UV–Vis DRS, PL and electrochemistry tests were used to characterize the catalysts. The results showed that the appropriate amount of N, V co-doped can cause structural changes of TiO2. The co-doped of N and V enhanced the photocurrent response of TiO2, increased the specific surface area, reduced the band gap, and improved the efficiency of photodegradation of tetracycline. Accordingly, the tetracycline photocatalytic degradation path was proposed. 6%N-1.5%V–TiO2 completely degraded tetracycline into CO2, H2O and NO3−. The calculation results show that an appropriate amount of N, V co-doped TiO2 decreased bandgap, improved the optical absorption performance of TiO2. This work demonstrated the potential of N, V co-doped to design efficient photocatalysts.