Vanadium oxides doped porous titania photocatalysts for phenol photodegradation

Abstract

Vanadium oxides (1 - 5 wt%) doped porous TiO2 using tetrabutyltitanate and cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide as Ti precursor and template, respectively was successfully synthesized via sol-gel method. All the samples crystallined in anatase phase as indicated by X-ray diffraction analysis. The results of diffused reflectance UV-visible spectroscopy analysis showed that the band gap energy of TiO2 reduced from 3.02 to 2.72 eV after introduction of 5 wt% V. The nitrogen adsorption-desorption analysis revealed that the surface area of samples increased with the amount of V dopant. These materials contained of disorder mesopores with particle size ranged 5 – 56 nm. Amongst, sample 4V-TBT-p-TiO2 recorded the highest percentage of phenol degradation (62.2%) under visible light irradiation