Preparation and Photocatalytic Properties of Ce/g-C3N4 Co-doped TiO2 Nanomaterials

Abstract

A Ce/TiO2/g-C3N4 composite material was prepared by sol-gel method using g-C3N4 as support and Ce(NH4)2(NO3)6 as dopant. The structural and morphological characterization of the samples was detected by TEM, XRD, FTIR, UV-Vis. RhB was selected as the target pollutant, the photocatalytic and renewable properties of the samples driven by visible light were evaluated. The results showed that Ce/TiO2/g-C3N4 had excellent heterojunction structure. The ternary components cooperate with each other to show excellent photocatalytic performance for RhB solution with molar concentration of 0.5×10−5mol·L−1 under the condition of dosage of 20.0mg, pH 5.0 and visible light-driven 180min. The degradation rate of RhB was 99.3% better than that of g-C3N4, TiO2 and Ce/TiO2. Cyclic degradation experiments indicated that the Ce/TiO2/g-C3N4 had high photocatalysis stability and reusability. Active group capture experiments revealed that ·O2- was the main active species in the photocatalytic degradation of RhB over Ce/TiO2/g-C3N4, and the corresponding contribution rate of ·O2- was 84.1%.