Highly Visible Light Active TiO2-xNx Heterojunction Photocatalysts

By Vinodkumar Etacheri, Michael K. Seery, S. Hinder, S. Pillai. 2010

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Nitrogen doped anatase-rutile heterojunctions are successfully synthesized through an ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) modified sol−gel process. An FT-IR study of EDTA modified TiO2 gel confirms the existence of an ionic intermediate (as indicated by a Δν value of 233 cm−1). Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Raman spectroscopy are employed to study the phase evolution, phase purity, and crystallite size of samples. Formations of O−Ti−N and N−Ti−N bonds in calcined samples are confirmed using XPS and FT-IR spectroscopy. All EDTA modified samples show significantly higher visible light photocatalytic activity than the unmodified sample. The most active nitrogen doped heterojunction obtained at 400 °C exhibits 9-fold visible light activity in comparison to the standard photocatalyst Degussa P-25. It is proposed that the photo excited electrons (from the visible midgap level) are effectively transferred from the conduction band of anatase to that of rutile causing eff...

Subfields: Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/ca00ab879d8298b43eaa33c8f3a80bb79c1a4c40