Abstract
In this paper, the surface of titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanotubes (NTs) was decorated with sulfur by impregnation procedure. The crystalline structure and morphology of the S-TiO2 NT hybrid catalyst were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The chemical components of S-TiO2 NT-1 sample were analyzed by energy dispersive X-ray (EDX). The results showed that sulfur impurities were incorporated into TiO2 crystal structure and decorated on its surface due to the heat treatment temperature used throughout the fabrication process. Moreover, its photocatalytic reaction was evaluated by change of adsorption intensity of methyl orange (MO) aqueous solution at wavelength of 467 nm. This work revealed that the sulfur loaded onto TiO2 NT nanostructures exhibited excellent photocatalytic efficacy for the degradation of the MO dye compared with pristine TiO2 NTs (93.12 ± 0.02% and 80.21 ± 0.04% MO degradation efficacy under UV light versus visible-light regime, respectively, after 180 minutes). This was mainly governed by sulfur ions modified on the surface of TiO2 NTs which played a critical role in promoting the separation rate of photo-induced charge carriers.
Highlights
The energy crisis has drawn enormous attention in recent years due to an increasing demand for global energy and the rapid depletion of non-renewable energy resources [1,2]
The results revealed that compared to the pristine TiO2 NTs, there was no significant surface morphological change over the sulfidation of NTs
Some well-shaped nanocrystals were observed on the surface of the TiO2 NTs via modifying the sulfidation precursor, which was mainly governed by the formation of Ti-S on the surface
Summary
The energy crisis has drawn enormous attention in recent years due to an increasing demand for global energy and the rapid depletion of non-renewable energy resources [1,2]. Clean and renewable energy resources, such as solar energy, are the most abundant on earth and without additional pollutant emission and economically viable, very crucial to the entire world. Among all these applications, photocatalysis has attracted much interest due to its great applications to solving environmental obstacles as a new approach for utilizing more effective solar radiation, since a pioneering report by Fujishima and Honda who demonstrated water splitting using titanium dioxide (TiO2) in 1972 3. It is noteworthy that non-metal doped into the TiO2 structure has been analyzed extensively, in
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