Optimization of Boron Doped TiO2 as an Efficient Visible Light-Driven Photocatalyst for Organic Dye Degradation With High Reusability
Pingping Niu, Guanghui Wu, Pinghua Chen, Huitao Zheng, Qun Cao, Hualin Jiang
Abstract
No visible light activity is the bottle neck for wide application of TiO2. In this study, B was doped into TiO2 to prepare B-TiO2 photocatalyst, and its photocatalytic performance under visible light was investigated in details. SEM and TEM were used to study the morphology of B-TiO2; XRD was used to investigate the crystal characteristics of B-TiO2. Other techniques such as electronchemical impedance spectroscopy, photoluminescence, photocurrent response and UV-vis diffuse-reflectance spectra were applied to study the physicochemical properties of B-TiO2. The important active species involved in the photocatalytic process were carefully investigated to study the photocatalytic degradation mechanism, and the reusability of B-TiO2 was evaluated. The results indicate that B-TiO2 has high photocatalytic degradation ability towards rhodamine B under visible light irradiation, and can be effectively reused in 5 cycles. It is a highly potential photocatalyst to cope with dye pollution problems.