Synthesis and characterization of Fe-doped TiO2 photocatalyst by the sol-gel method

Abstract

Thin layers of pure TiO2 and TiO2 doped by different amounts of Fe2O3 have been prepared by the sol-gel method with tetraisopropyl orthotitanate and Fe(NO3)3. Physico-chemical properties of catalysts were characterized by BET Adsorption, x-ray Diffraction (XRD), FE-SEM, as well as Raman and UV-Vis spectroscopy. The photocatalytic activity of the obtained materials was investigated in the reaction of complete oxidation of p-xylene in gas phase under the radiation of UV (γ = 365 nm) and LED (γ = 470 nm) lamps. It has been found that the particle size of all samples was distributed in the range 20-30 nm. The content of the rutile phase in Fe-doped TiO2 samples varied in the range 6.8 to 41.8% depending on the Fe content. Iron oxide doped into TiO 2 enables the photon absorbing zone of TiO2 to extend from UV towards visible waves as well as to reduce its band gap energy from 3.2 to 2.67 eV. Photocatalytic activities of the TiO2 samples modified by Fe3+ have been found to be higher than those of pure TiO2 by about 2.5 times. © 2010 Vietnam Academy of Science & Technology.