PREPARATION OF DOPED TiO2 PHOTOCATALYSTS AND THEIR DECOLORIZATION EFFICIENCIES UNDER SOLAR LIGHT

Abstract

Photocatalysis has gained a great interest for the degradation of organic pollutantsin aqueous media. This effective advanced oxidation technique is basically based onthe oxidation of the target molecule by hydroxyl radicals. The most widely preferredand powerful photocatalyst is titanium dioxide (TiO2), but it has limited use undersolar light because of its band gap energy. This is a major drawback for variouspossible applications. In order to overcome this disadvantage, doping thephotocatalyst with metals and non-metals to narrow the band gap can be applied.In this work, we have prepared visible light active photocatalysts by using wetimpregnation method. Decolorization of two different classes of dyes, Rhodamine Band Congo Red, was carried out under simulated solar light with doped TiO2. Thephotocatalytic performances of non-metal doped (C, N, Se), metal doped (Cu, Fe) andcodoped (N/S) TiO2photocatalysts were investigated by UV-vis studies and removalpercentage calculations.