Abstract
In this paper, a comparative study on the photocatalytic degradation of the Rhodamine B (RhB) dye as a model compound using N-Fe codoped TiO2 nanorods under UV and visible-light (λ ≥420 nm) irradiations has been performed. TiO2 photocatalysts were fabricated as aligned nanorod arrays by liquid-phase deposition process, annealed at different temperatures from 400 to 800 °C. The effects of annealing temperature on the phase structure, crystallinity, BET surface area, and resulting photocatalytic activity of N-Fe codoped TiO2 nanorods were also investigated. The degradation studies confirmed that the nanorods annealed at 600 °C composed of both anatase (79%) and rutile phases (21%) and offered the highest activity and stability among the series of nanorods, as it degraded 94.8% and 87.2% RhB in 120 min irradiation under UV and visible-light, respectively. Above 600 °C, the photocatalytic performance of nanorods decreased owning to a phase change, decreased surface area and bandgap, and growth of TiO2 crystallites induced by the annealing temperature. It is hoped that this work could provide precious information on the design of ID catalyst materials with more superior photodegradation properties especially under visible-light for the further industrial applications.
Highlights
As an n-type semiconductor, TiO2 is an important material, which possesses good thermal and chemical stability, high oxidizing power, nontoxicity, and low cost [1]
It can be found that the N–Fe codoped TiO2 nanorods annealed at 600 °C, which contained a mixture of 79% anatase and 21% rutile, revealed the highest photocatalytic performance toward the degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB) under both UV and visible-light among all tested TiO2 samples, which could be good perspective for improving the photocatalytic degradation of RhB dye
The aligned N–Fe codoped TiO2 nanorods with an average diameter of 100 nm were successfully synthesized by a simple liquid-phase deposition process combined with a template-assisted approach
Summary
As an n-type semiconductor, TiO2 is an important material, which possesses good thermal and chemical stability, high oxidizing power, nontoxicity, and low cost [1]. Several template-based techniques such as electrophoretic deposition [19], sol–gel synthesis [20], chemical vapor deposition (CVD) [21], ALD [22], etc., have been employed to fabricate 1D TiO2 nanostructures, liquid-phase deposition (LPD) process has been shown to be especially versatile synthesis procedure. This method is one of the simplest and most practical ones, since it has so many advantages such as mild reaction condition, high degree of control, simple equipment requirement, low cost, desired size and morphology, and allows TiO2 films to be deposited over large areas [23,24]. The photocatalytic efficiency of the nanorods was evaluated by the photocatalytic degradation using Rhodamine B (RhB) as a model pollutant in the presence of UV and visible-light and quantification of the generated CO2 as one of the main products
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