Fe-doped and ZnO-pillared titanates as visible-light-driven photocatalysts

Abstract

Fe-doped cesium titanate was obtained by a solid state reaction with a mixture of Cs 2CO 3, TiO 2, and Fe 2O 3. ZnO-pillared doped titanate nanocomposite was successfully fabricated by exfoliating doped titanate and restacking its nanosheets with ZnO nanoparticles. The resulting nanocomposite was characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscope, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, N 2 adsorption–desorption measurement, thermogravimetric analysis and UV–vis spectroscopy. It was revealed that the present nanocomposite exhibits greatly increased specific surface area with mesoporous texture and that there exists an electronic coupling between the host sheets and the guest nanoparticles in the pillared system. The results of degradation of methylene blue under visible light radiation suggest that doping iron ions improves the material spectral response region and that hybridizing with ZnO nanopillars can suppress the recombination of photogenerated electron–hole pairs.