Abstract
The present study discusses the synthesis of Nb doped TiO2/reduced graphene oxide (rGO) intercalated nanocomposites via sol-gel route at a lower temperature by using different loading amounts of graphene oxide (GO) (1 to 10 wt%). The synthesized composite materials were further characterized by copious instruments such as X-ray Diffractometer, UV-Vis Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy, Transmission Electron Microscopy, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area analysis, Raman and Fourier Transform-Infrared Spectroscopy. The experimental results stated that the Nb doped TiO2 nanoparticles uniformly distributed on the surface of rGO with an interfacial linking bond between TiO2 and rGO. Later, the photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) dye using produced materials under visible light irradiation was examined. These results revealed that Nb doped TiO2/rGO nanocomposites exhibited better photocatalytic performance than Nb doped TiO2 for the removal of RhB dye. However, among all, the nanocomposite having 5 wt% of GO content achieves the highest degradation efficiency for RhB dye approximately 98% under visible light exposure. Altogether, the unique properties such as electron accepting and transporting properties of GO in the nanocomposite is caused to enhance photocatalytic activity by minimizing the charge carrier’s recombination rate.
Highlights
From the past few decades, textile wet processing and finishing industries are strongly dependent on synthetic dyes that severely contaminating water as they produce organic pollutants
All the discerned peaks for Nb doped TiO2/rGO composite (NTG) nanocomposites at 2θ = 25.06, 37.27, 47.99, 54.8, 62.32 and 68.8° can be signed to the respective anatase crystal faces of (101), (004), (200), (211), (204) and (220) which is in well concord with the JCPDS No 21–1272
The formation of the Nb doped TiO2 nanoparticles and their incorporation on the reduced graphene oxide (rGO) nanosheets surface was established by XRD, TEM, SEM-EDX, and UV-diffuse reflectance spectrophotometer (DRS) techniques
Summary
From the past few decades, textile wet processing and finishing industries are strongly dependent on synthetic dyes that severely contaminating water as they produce organic pollutants. Due to large bandgap 3.2 eV (anatase TiO2) and poor electron mobility, it Prabhakarrao et al Sustainable Environment Research (2021) 31:37 shows very limited photosensitization in the visible range of solar spectrum. To overcome these challenges, several efforts have been made by researchers such as transition metal doping [5, 6], semiconductor coupling [7], surface polymer sensitization [8, 9] and combination with supporting materials such as carbonaceous materials [10]. Metal ion doping of TiO2 along with carbonaceous material combination is the emerging area in present era. It is mainly due to the ionic radius of Nb5+ (0.064 nm) is significantly larger than Ti4+ (0.0605 nm) which effectively constricts the band gap of TiO2 to enlarge its adsorption in visible region and on the other side metals are thermally unstable as well as effortless to cause the charge carriers recombination [13]
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