Photocatalytic Activity of TiO2-Doped Fe, Ag, and Ni with N under Visible Light Irradiation.

Byung-Geon Park

doi:10.3390/gels8010014

Abstract

Doping with noble metal ions or doping with nitrogen has been attempted to prepare TiO2 that reacts even in visible light. In this study, TiO2 was doped with nitrogen and various metal ions instead of noble metals. The TiO2 photocatalysts doped with metal ions (Fe, Ag, Ni) and nitrogen were prepared by a sol-gel method. Their physicochemical properties were characterized and their photocatalytic activities were investigated under visible light irradiation. In TiO2 doped with metal ions and nitrogen, the light absorption region was extended to visible light. The photoluminescence intensity was much greater in N/Ni/TiO2 than in N/Ag/TiO2 and N/Fe/TiO2. The photolysis activities of N/Ni/TiO2 were the highest in formaldehyde decomposition and methylene blue decomposition. The sterilization efficiency of N/Ni/TiO2 was the highest in the evaluation test for the inhibition of the proliferation of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The bandgap of N/Ni/TiO2 was 2.4 eV, which was significantly lower than that of anatase TiO2 (3.2 eV). The N/Ni/TiO2 had a much higher optical intensity than other metal ion-doped TiO2, so it was highly active under visible light irradiation.

Highlights

Activity of TiO2 -Doped Fe, Ag, andTiO2 is a representative photocatalyst due to its superb photocatalytic activities and excellent chemical stability [1]
The results show that metal doping can enhance photocatalytic activity and reduce recombination
No peak of doped metal was observed. It seems that this has not been analyzed because the amount of doped metal after TiO2 preparation is very small (1 wt% or less)

Summary

Introduction

Activity of TiO2 -Doped Fe, Ag, and. TiO2 is a representative photocatalyst due to its superb photocatalytic activities and excellent chemical stability [1]. It is effective in decomposing organic pollutants as it has a strong oxidizing ability [2,3]. TiO2 has been applied in various fields due to its low cost and eco-friendly properties [4]. TiO2 has a large bandgap energy (3.0–3.2 eV), so the photocatalytic activity does not show for visible light, but only for UV light. There is a disadvantage in that the efficiency decreases due to rapid recombination [5,6]

Methods

Results

Conclusion