Vanadium and Nitrogen Co-Doped Titanium Dioxide (TiO₂) with Enhanced Photocatalytic Performance: Potential in Wastewater Treatment

J Nanosci Nanotechnol. 2020 Feb 1;20(2):741-751. doi: 10.1166/jnn.2020.16946.

Abstract

The vanadium (V) and nitrogen (N) dopants on TiO₂ demonstrated superior photocatalytic performance for the degradation of methylene blue (MB) dye under visible light. The vanadium, V, N-co-doped TiO₂ was synthesized by a modified sol-gel method. It revealed that V and N codoping had a significant effect on the band gap (Eg) of TiO₂, where the pristine TiO₂ possessed a wide band gap (3.18 eV) compared to V-doped TiO₂ (2.89 eV) and N-doped TiO₂ (2.87 eV) while the V, N-co-doped TiO₂ depicted the narrowest band gap (2.65 eV). The greatly increased specific surface area for the V, N-co-doped TiO₂ (103.87 m²/g) as compared to P25 TiO₂ (51.68 m²/g) also contributed to the major improvement in the MB dye degradation efficiency (0.055 min-1). The V, N-co-doped TiO₂ exhibit rapid photocatalytic activity for the degradation of MB with almost 99% of degradation in 120 minutes.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't