The Synthesis of Ag Doped TiO<sub>2</sub> Powders and Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity for Degradation of Organic Dye in Waste Waters

Abstract

The Ag/TiO2powders with different Ag contents were synthesized with tetrabutyl titanate as a titanium source and silver nitrate as silver source by sol-gel method, and the Ag contents in the Ag/TiO2powders were 0.1%, 0.3%, 0.5 %, 0.8%, 1%, 1.5%, 2%, 2.5%, 3%, and 4% (mole ratio) respectively. Meanwhile, Rhodamine B was used as target degradant to value the photocatalytic activity of Ag/TiO2powders, the effects of Ag contents, the calcination temperature and calcination time on the photocatalytic activity were disscussed The results show that catalytic activity of the Ag/TiO2powders prepared with the Ag content of 2%, calcination temperature of 450 °C and calcination time of 2 hours exhibited the best photocatalytic activity, which was ascribed to the abundant electron traps in favor of the separation of the photoinduced electron-hole pairs.