Preparation and photocatalytic properties of V-doped TiO2 nanotube arrays

The titanium vanadium alloy as raw material, using anode oxidation method, the highly dense, ordered vanadium doped titania nanotube arrays were fabricated. The nanotube arrays characterization of morphology, composition and structure were determined by scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy disperse spectroscopy (EDS) and powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), the results showed that the different weight concentrations of HF electrolyte prepared by radial different nanotube arrays, with the weight concentration of the electrolyte HF changing from (0.5% to 1.5wt%), the variation of nanotube arrays' diameters was from 39.7 to 72.7 nm. At room temperature, under visible light irradiation, photocatalytic degradation of 10 mg/L methyleneblue solution was carried out to test its photocatalytic properties. The results showed vanadium doped titania nanotube arrays photocatalytic properties of titania nanotube arrays is better than that of pure sample S1, and the samples were fabricated under HF electrolyte weight concentration 1.0wt% have more photocatalytic efficiency than other experimental conditions. The mechanism was briefly discussed.