Abstract
Nanostructured TiO2 films were synthesized by a modified sol–gel method using Pluronics P-123 (EO20PO70EO20) as templating agent, titanium n-butoxide [Ti(OC4H9)4] as inorganic precursor, and ammonium fluoride (NH4F) as the source of N and F dopant atoms in order to prepare sols of x(NF) TiO2 (x=2, 5, 10, 20 wt%). The thin film preparation was made by spin coating, followed by calcination at 400 °C. The as-prepared TiO2 and xNF-TiO2 films were characterized by XRD, Raman spectroscopy, FTIR, TGA-DTA, SEM, UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy and EPR. XRD and Raman spectroscopy show that the crystalline structure of these samples consists exclusively of the anatase phase. The band gap (Eg) values for the doped 10 and 20 NF-TiO2 film systems were found to be significantly smaller than those corresponding to the rest of the other TiO2 films. The photocatalytic properties of these films are investigated by following the degradation of methyl orange in aqueous solution under UV irradiation. The photodecomposition is mainly a direct function of the amount of NF present in the TiO2 matrix. The 20NF-TiO2 sample shows the highest activity of all the samples studied.
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