Influence of synthesis methods on zirconium doped titania photocatalysts

Abstract

Synthesis of various zirconium doped titania based photocatalysts were carried out by adapting different synthetic strategies. Doping is done on commercially available anatase titania, sol-gel titania and template mediated sol gel titania. A comparative study of the various prepared photocataysts was done using physico-chemical characterization techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), surface area-pore volume measurements, UV-VIS Diffuse reflectance spectra (DRS), elemental analysis (XRF) and transmission electron microscopic (TEM) studies. The effect of zirconium and preparation methods on the photocatalytic degradation of methylorange is studied extensively. Both the surface properties and photo activity of zirconium doped titania were found to have a great dependence on the preparation methods. Among the different photocatalytic systems, the catalyst prepared by doping in the presence of urea template was found to produce a maximum photodegradation of 97.5%.

Carbon-Doped TiO2 and Carbon, Tungsten-Codoped TiO2 through Sol–Gel Processes in the Presence of Melamine Borate: Reflections through Photocatalysis

“…Table 1). The photocatalytic degradation process is reportedly heavily influenced by morphology, phase, chemical composition and particle size [50][51][52][53]. The smaller crystalline particle size and increased surface area of the material calcined only for 1 h appear to have enhanced the photocatalytic activity.…”

“…Other factors are also important such as the crystallinity and particle size of the material and the ability of the material to retard the electron-hole recombination process [50][51][52][53][58][59][60].…”

Sulfur/Gadolinium‐Codoped TiO2 Nanoparticles for Enhanced Visible‐Light Photocatalytic Performance

“…The high intrinsic band gap of pure TiO 2 operates effectively as a photocatalyst in the UV region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Thus, pure TiO 2 is able to use only around 4% of terrestrial solar spectrum because of its wide band gap [14]. In order to harness the full potential of the sunlight in photocatalysis, various methods, such as sensitization [15,16], composite semiconductor coupling [17,18], and doping of TiO 2 [19,20], have been developed to overcome this challenge.…”

Visible light-induced photocatalysis through surface plasmon excitation of platinum-metallized titania for photocatalytic bleaching of rhodamine B

“…The steep edge indicates that the UV light absorption was not due to the impurity-level transitions but due to a band transition caused by the charge transfer from the valence band (mainly formed by 2p orbitals of the oxide anions) to the conduction band (mainly formed by 3d t 2g orbitals of the Ti 4? cations) [34]. To obtain the optical band gap (E b ) of indirect band gap materials such as TiO 2 , the absorption coefficient (a R ) was calculated from the measured absorbance (A) using the following equation: a = 2.303q 9 A 9 10 3 /(lcM), where the density q = 3.89 g cm -3 , molecular weight M = 79.9 g mol -1 , c is the molar concentration of TiO 2 , and l is the optical path length.…”