Photodegradation of methylene blue and evans blue by iron and sulphur doped tio2 nanophotocatalyst under ultraviolet and visible light irradiation

Abstract

This research firstly aims to fabricate and characterize doped TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) by iron and Sulphur dopants, and then the determination of the photocatalytic activity of NPs. Titanium tetraisopropoxide (TTIP), iron trichloride hexahydrate, thiouria, glacial acetic are utilized as precursors in the hydrothermal method without using a template or surfactant. The synthesized NPs are investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), N2 adsorption-desorption, UV-Vis spectroscopy, UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR). The lattice constants, strain, stress, deformation energy density and crystallite size are investigated using Williamson-Hall (W-H) and WagnerHalder (W-H) models by considering the different isotropic nature of the crystalline lattice. The X-ray analysis indicates the tetragonal anatase phase without dopant crystalline phases. The FE-SEM and TEM images reveal a granular shape of NPs with a mean diameter of about 35 nm. Decoloration or photodegradation of organic dyes such as methylene blue (MB) and Evans Blue (EV) under UV-Vis irradiation is a method to measure the photocatalytic activity of doped TiO2 NPs. The results indicate the significant effect of dopants on the photocatalytic activity of doped TiO2 NPs, so that in comparison with other studies, it has a higher performance and removal efficiency. The bandgap of NPs is estimated from the Kubelka-Munk theory to be 2.87 eV.