Abstract

Two different types of nitrogen-containing TiO2 were synthesized via an acid-modified sol–gel method. Yellow-colored interstitial and white substitutional nitrogen-containing TiO2 powders were characterized by means of X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller specific surface area and Barrett–Joyner–Halenda pore size distribution analyses, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and UV–vis absorption spectroscopy. The band gaps of interstitial and substitutional nitrogen-containing TiO2 ceramics were estimated from UV–vis spectroscopy data to be 2.6 and 2.8 eV, respectively. Prepared substitutional nitrogen-containing TiO2 featured steep light absorption edge with an approximately parallel characteristic to that in pure TiO2. This fact is due to band-to-band visible light absorption ability of substitutional nitrogen-containing TiO2. The photocatalytic properties of the produced nitrogen-containing TiO2 samples were compared for the degradation of Direct Red 28 azo dye. Further studies were also devised to compare the catalytic efficiency of the nitrogen-containing TiO2 powders with the pure TiO2 synthesized via the similar sol–gel method. The produced nitrogen-containing TiO2 samples revealed superior photocatalytic properties in comparison with pure TiO2 due to their remarkable band gap narrowing, surface oxygen vacancies and much more surface defects. The results also revealed that the substitutional nitrogen-containing TiO2 is the most effective photocatalyst under ultraviolet and visible light irradiation.

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