The utilization of ball-mill in the fabrication of metallic titanium incorporated carbon nitride as an active visible light sensitive photocatalyst

Abstract

• Metallic Ti incorporated into g-carbon nitride by using ball-mill followed by calcination. • The characterization data confirmed the presence of Ti nanoparticles encapsulated by the g-CN layers. • The incorporation of metallic Ti did not influence the bandgap energy of g-C 3 N 4 (2.75 eV). • The fabricated materials exhibited high photocatalytic performance in the decolourization of arsenazo III dye solution. Titanium metal (Ti) nanoparticles were incorporated into graphitic carbon nitride (CN) though one-pot synthesis solvent-free procedure. Three samples with different metallic Ti content (2, 5 and 10 wt%) were fabricated based on a thermal treatment for a mixture prepared by ball-mill. The prepared materials were characterized by several techniques such as inductively coupled plasma (ICP) for elemental analysis, X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscope (SEM), high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), and diffuse reflectance UV–vis spectroscopy. The obtained data showed that Ti nanoparticles were incorporated into CN layers without significant change in the optical properties of CN. From application point of view the photocatalytic performance of the prepared Ti-CN samples was studied in the decolourization reaction of an Arsenazo III (ArIII) dye solution under the illumination of visible light (wavelength > 420 nm). The obtained results showed that Ti-CN samples are highly photocatalytic active in which all the prepared samples were able to photocatalyze 100% decolourization of the dye solution. An obvious trend was observed, in which the rate of the decolourization reaction is proportional to the Ti content up to 10 wt%. The sample with 10 wt% Ti exhibited the highest activity, moreover, recycling of the same sample was also examined and the sample showed promising stability.