Preparation and Characterization of Ni-Doped Materials for Photocurrent and Photocatalytic Applications

Abstract

Different amounts of Ni-doped TiO2 (Ni = 0.1 to 10%) powders and thin films were prepared by following a conventional coprecipitation and sol-gel dip coating techniques, respectively, at 400 to 800°C, and were thoroughly characterized by means of XRD, FT-IR, FT-Raman, DRS, UV-visible, BET surface area, zeta potential, flat band potential, and photocurrent measurement techniques. Photocatalytic abilities of Ni-doped TiO2 powders were evaluated by means of methylene blue (MB) degradation reaction under simulated solar light. Characterization results suggest that as a dopant, Ni stabilizes TiO2 in the form of anatase phase, reduces its bandgap energy, and adjusts its flat band potentials such that this material can be employed for photoelectrochemical (PEC) oxidation of water reaction. The photocatalytic activity and photocurrent ability of TiO2 have been enhanced by doping of Ni in TiO2. The kinetic studies revealed that the MB degradation reaction follows the Langmuir-Hinshelwood first-order reaction relationship.

Study of photocatalytic degradation of environmentally harmful phthalate esters using Ni-doped TiO2 nanoparticles

“…The band is more intense in case of doped samples as compared to undoped because of the presence of more molecules in doped samples. Our results agree well with the results obtained by Ganesh et al (2012) also. Int.…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, there is no report related to the degradation of phthalate esters using Ni-doped TiO 2 nanoparticles. Many researchers have doped Ni into TiO 2 by various processing methods to increase photocatalytic activity of TiO 2 (Nakhate et al 2010;Woo et al 2007;Ganesh et al 2012). The present work focuses on the synthesis of undoped and Ni-doped TiO 2 nanoparticles by the sol-gel method.…”

Band-Gap Change and Photocatalytic Activity of Silica/Titania Composites Associated with Incorporation of CuO and NiO

“…Similar situation was found in [78][79][80][81][82]. The positions of the bands defined using the Tanabe-Sugano diagrams [83] [82,84].…”

Structural, optical, and magnetic study of Ni-doped TiO2 nanoparticles synthesized by sol–gel method

“…Figure 3 shows the FTIR spectra of undoped and Nidoped TiO 2 nanoparticles calcined at 450 °C for 3 h. The spectra for all samples are identical and reflecting that doping has no effect on bonding environment present in the host material. The broadband around 4000-3200 cm −1 is attributed to symmetric and antisymmetric stretching vibrations of a single-bond functional group of -OH [41]. The peaks between around 2500 and 2300 cm −1 indicate the stretching of O=C=O bond [42].…”