Abstract
Semiconductor TiO2 photocatalysis has attracted much attention due to its potential application in solving the problems of environmental pollution. In this paper, thiourea (CH4N2S) modified anatase TiO2 nanorods were fabricated by calcination of the mixture of TiO2 nanorods and thiourea at 600 °C for 2 h. It was found that only N element was doped into the lattice of TiO2 nanorods. With increasing the weight ratio of thiourea to TiO2 (R) from 0 to 8, the light-harvesting ability of the photocatalyst steady increases. Both the crystallization and photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nanorods increase first and then decrease with increase in R value, and R2 sample showed the highest crystallization and photocatalytic activity in degradation of Brilliant Red X3B (X3B) and Rhodamine B (RhB) dyes under visible light irradiation (λ > 420 nm). The increased visible-light photocatalytic activity of the prepared N-doped TiO2 nanorods is due to the synergistic effects of the enhanced crystallization, improved light-harvesting ability and reduced recombination rate of photo-generated electron-hole pairs. Note that the enhanced visible photocatalytic activity of N-doped nanorods is not based on the scarification of their UV photocatalytic activity.
Highlights
In recent years, intensive studies have been reported to on the preparation of TiO2 due to its potential application in environmental remediation [1,2,3,4,5]
We report the preparation of 1 dimensional (1D) N-doped TiO2 nanorods by calcining TiO2 nanorods in the presence of thiourea, which is one of the commonly used TiO2 dopant precursors [6]
Improved crystallization means less deflects, which favors for the enhanced photocatalytic activity of TiO2
Summary
Intensive studies have been reported to on the preparation of TiO2 due to its potential application in environmental remediation [1,2,3,4,5]. Gang et al [27] reported the preparation of the visible light responsive N-doped anatase TiO2 sheets with dominant {001} facets by hydrothermal treatment of TiN-HF mixed solution. According to the study of Zhang et al [31], the photoreactivity of visible-light responsive C, N and S co-dopd TiO2 nanoparticles, prepared by calcination the mixture of TiO2 and thiourea at 300 ̋ C, which exhibited stronger photo-absorption in the visible light region and higher dopant content, indicating its potential for higher visible-light photocatalytic activity. TiO2 in the presence of organic materials, where high migration efficiency of photoinduced electrons at the graphite-like carbon/TiO2 interface is response for the enhanced photocatalytic activity. To exclude the formation of surface hybridized graphite-like carbon, the calcination temperature was set to 600 ̋ C, because almost all of the organics can be removed by calcination at high temperature under air
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