Metal Titanate (ATiO3, A: Ni, Co, Mg, Zn) Nanorods for Toluene Photooxidation under LED Illumination

Abstract

The increasing air pollution taking place in virtue of human activity has a novel impact in our health. Heterogeneous photocatalysis is a promising way of degrading volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that makes the quest of new and improved photocatalysts of great importance. Herein, perovskite-related materials ATiO3 with A = Mg, Ni, Co, Zn were synthesized through an ethylene glycol-mediated root, with ethylene glycol being used as a solvent and ligand. Characterization techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV-vis spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), and photoluminescence spectroscopy (PL) were used in order to confirm the structure, the nanorod morphology, their absorption in UV-vis, and the separation efficiency of photogenerated charge carriers. The highest photoactivity was observed for ZnTiO3 in which 62% of toluene was decomposed after 60 min under LED illumination (54 mW/cm2).

Structural and optical properties of highly Ag-doped TiO2 thin films prepared by flash thermal evaporation

“…However, in Ag-TiO 2 samples, there is a broad band in the region of 700-720 cm −1 , which is characteristic of this type of system according to numerous experiments. This peak is attributed to the defective structure of TiO 2 , particularly to titanates of various non-noble metals [19,48]. We notice the presence of this band in our spectra, which is absent in literature for TiO2 Anathase Raman spectra.…”

Visible light-driven photocatalytic activity of wide band gap ATiO3 (A = Sr, Zn and Cd) perovskites by lanthanide doping and the formation of a mesoporous heterostructure with ZnS QDs

“…Titanates based on alkaline metal ions, especially SrTiO 3 , have been investigated for a long time for the photocatalytic degradation of persistent organic pollutants and water splitting. [20][21][22][23][24][25] Despite the interesting electronic, optical and physical properties, alkaline metal ion-based titanates suffer from intrinsic wide band gap energy, restricting their utilization in visiblelight-driven photocatalysis. On the other hand, the efficiency of the photocatalytic degradation of organics by titanates based on alkaline metal ions is low, and achieving maximum degradation efficiency can take several hours due to the fast recombination of electron-hole pairs.…”