Characterization and visible-light-activity of nitrogen-doped TiO2 photocatalyst

A visible-light-active photocatalyst was prepared by calcination of the hydrolysis product of tetrabutyl titanate with ammonia as precipitant. The photocatalyst was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-Vis diffuse reflection spectra (DRS), thermal gravimetric-differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscope (SEM). The color of the photocatalyst was yellow and could absorb light wavelength under 550 nm as measured by DRS. The catalyst calcined at higher temperature will give lower absorbance for visible light. Structures of the sample were characterized mainly to be anatase by XRD except for the sample calcined at 700 degrees C which gave mixtures of anatase and rutile. TG-DTA results showed that temperature for anatase formation was 415 T. XPS results showed that doped-nitrogen was presented in the sample, they are important to show visible-light absorbency. The photocatalytic activities were evaluated using methyl orange and phenol as model pollutants, the results showed that over 90% of phenol could be degraded under visible light using N/TiO2 as the catalyst after 4 hours reaction. Almost the same activity was found for the TiO2 photocatalyst calcined at different temperature under sunlight but activities were different when the treatment was under UV light.