Abstract
The synergistic effect of nitrogen content and calcinations temperature on the N-doped TiO2catalysts prepared by sol-gel method was investigated. The phase and structure, chemical state, optical properties, and surface area/pore distribution of N-doped TiO2were characterized using X-ray diffraction spectrometer, high-resolution transmission electron microscope, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, UV-vis diffusion reflectance spectroscopy, and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller specific surface area. Finding showed that the photocatalytic activity of N-doped TiO2was greatly enhanced compared to pure TiO2under visible irradiation. N dopants could retard the transformation from anatase to rutile phase. Namely, N-doping effect is attributed to the anatase phase stabilization. The results showed nitrogen atoms were incorporated into the interstitial positions of the TiO2lattice. Ethylene was used to evaluate the photocatalytic activity of samples under visible-light illumination. The results suggested good anatase crystallization, smaller particle size, and larger surface are beneficial for photocatalytic activity of N-doped TiO2. The N-doped TiO2catalyst prepared with ammonia to titanium isopropoxide molar ratio of 2.0 and calcinated at 400°C showed the best photocatalytic ability.
Highlights
Titanium dioxide (TiO2 ) is an effective photocatalyst due to its inexpensiveness, chemical stability, nontoxicity, biological and chemical inertness, and long-term stability against photo-corrosion and chemical corrosion [1, 2]
We focused on sol-gel synthesis process for the preparation of nitrogen-doped TiO2 catalysts (N-TiO2 )
Ti–O–N formation; that is, the nitrogen can be incorporated into the interstitial positions of TiO2 lattice, which leads to the enhanced photocatalytic activity in N-TiO2 samples
Summary
Titanium dioxide (TiO2 ) is an effective photocatalyst due to its inexpensiveness, chemical stability, nontoxicity, biological and chemical inertness, and long-term stability against photo-corrosion and chemical corrosion [1, 2]. Its wide band gap of 3.2 and 3.0 eV for anatase and rutile polymorphs, respectively, requires UV light for the excitation of electron-hole pairs. It only uses 45% of the UV light in the solar irradiation. To utilize solar energy effectively, many attempts have been made to modify the properties of TiO2 , such as doping with transition metal ions [12,13,14] or nonmetal anions [3, 15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23], and sensitization with organic dyes [24, 25].
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