Preparation and enhanced daylight-induced photo-catalytic activity of transparent C-Doped TiO2 thin films

Abstract

The transparent C-doped TiO 2 nanostructure films were fabricated on the silicate glass substrates by sol-gel spin-coated method. The as-prepared films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), UV-visible absorption spectra (UV-vis) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The photocatalytic activity was evaluated via the photocatalytic oxidation of methylene blue in aqueous under daylight irradiation at room temperature. The results show that the daylight-induced photocatalytic activities of the as-prepared films are improved by the C-doping. The calcination temperatures significantly affect the morphology, microstructure and photocatalytic activity of the as-prepared samples. At 723 K, the C-doped TiO 2 films exhibit the highest photocatalytic activity due to the synergetic effects of good crystallization, appropriate oxygen vacancies and strong absorption in the near UV and visible-light region.

Recent Developments in Environmental Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Pollutants: The Case of Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles—A Review

“…The use of TiO 2 in suspension form is efficient due to its large surface area but there are four major technical challenges that restrict its large-scale application and its use in water-treatment technologies. Firstly, it has a relatively wide band gap (∼3.2 eV, which falls in the UV range of the solar spectrum), and therefore it is unable to harness visible light thus ruling out sunlight as the energy source of its photoactivation [9,16,211,[226][227][228][229]. Secondly, it has low quantum efficiency due to the low rate of electron transfer to oxygen resulting in a high recombination of the photogenerated electron-hole pairs [226,227,230].…”

Visible light active photocatalytic C-doped titanium dioxide films deposited via reactive pulsed DC magnetron co-sputtering: Properties and photocatalytic activity

“…A number of methods are commonly used for the production of carbon-doped titanium dioxide materials, including chemical vapour deposition [24], sol-gel [16,25,26], hydrolysis [27], etc.…”

Layer‐by‐Layer Self‐Assembled Metal‐Ion‐ (Ag‐, Co‐, Ni‐, and Pd‐) Doped TiO2 Nanoparticles: Synthesis, Characterisation, and Visible Light Degradation of Rhodamine B

“…Although the use of TiO 2 in suspension form is more feasible due to its large surface area, there are four major technical challenges that restrict large-scale application of titania. Firstly, it has a relatively wide band gap (∼3.2 eV, which falls in the UV range of the solar spectrum); therefore, it has minimal absorption of visible light and is unable to harness visible light hence ruling out sunlight as the energy source of photoactivation [7,8,[10][11][12][13][14]. Secondly, it has low quantum efficiency due to the low rate of electron transfer to oxygen resulting in a high recombination of the photo generated electron-hole pairs [5,7,10].…”