Anomalous behavior of visible light active TiO2 for the photocatalytic degradation of different Reactive dyes.

Nanocrystalline undoped, N-doped, N and metal codoped titania with different particle size, surface area, anatase phase content, crystallinity, band gap and zeta potential were synthesized by the sol-gel method. The photocatalytic activities of the synthesized TiO2 powders were compared by employing four different Reactive dyes. The order of photocatalytic activity observed for Reactive Red 198 dye (RR 198) was undoped = N,Cu codoped = N-doped > N,Fe codoped TiO2, Reactive Blue 4 dye (RB 4) was N,Cu codoped > N,Fe codoped > N-doped > undoped TiO2, Reactive Black 5 dye (RB 5) was N,Cu codoped* > undoped > N-doped > N,Fe codoped TiO2 and negligible degradation was observed for Reactive Orange 16 dye (RO 16). In this paper, the anomalous trend of the photocatalytic activity of various photocatalysts for the degradation of a particular class of dyes has been observed and accounted for based upon three parameters: mechanism of degradation, physicochemical properties of the catalyst and adsorption behavior based on the zeta potential. It was concluded that apart from these parameters, the substrate-specificity of the catalyst is also of equal importance in developing new catalysts for the photodegradation of dyes present in textile effluents.

Choline Chloride Assisted Synthesis of N and Metal Codoped TiO2 and their Photocatalytic Activity under Visible Light.

A few nanocrystalline N,metal codoped TiO2 (metal = Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu and Zn) have been synthesized by a simple sol-gel method using choline chloride which is biodegradable, low cost, nontoxic ionic salt both as a structure directing agent and source of nitrogen. The prepared samples were well characterized by XRD, HRTEM, FTIR, DRS, EDX, XPS and BET techniques. The photocatalytic activity of all synthesized N, metal codoped TiO2 has been carried out for the degradation of Reactive Black 5 dye under visible light irradiation and among them, N, Fe codoped TiO2 was found to be the best for the degradation of Reactive Black 5 dye. The effect of incorporated metals on the photocatalytic activity of the various modified TiO2 has been discussed in detail based on the mechanism involved in the degradation of dye and their physico-chemical properties which includes surface area, particle size, defect sites, phase, band gap and electron-hole recombination effect.