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Influence of temperature on preparing mesoporous mixed phase N/TiO2 nanocomposite with enhanced solar light photocatalytic activity

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Abstract

Nitrogen-doped titanium dioxide (N/TiO2) nanophotocatalysts were successfully synthesized in the presence of environmentally benign nitrogen dopant source, guanidinium chloride, by the sol-gel method. The effect of calcination temperature (300–600 °C) on their physicochemical properties was investigated by means XRD, XPS, FESEM, HRTEM, Raman spectroscopy, UV-vis DRS, PL and BET. Moreover, their photocatalytic activities were evaluated against rhodamine B (RhB) degradation under direct sun light. Results showed that the crystal phase of spheroidal N/TiO2 nanoparticles was changed from anatase (300 °C) to rutile (600 °C) via an intermediate anatase/rutile (A/R) mixed phase (400–500 °C), and the RhB photodegradation performance was increased with the decrease of the calcination temperature. Notably, N/TiO2 prepared at 400 °C demonstrated the best degradation performance (99%) after 5 h irradiation. The enhanced performance with high photostability was mainly attributed to its higher surface area and pore volume, stronger light absorption, and lower recombination rate. Such nanomaterials have practical applications for environmental remediation.

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Acknowledgements

This study was financially supported by the World Academy of Sciences (CSIR-TWAS-2016, FR number: 3240293587), and the Centre for Science & Technology of the Non-aligned and Other Developing Countries (RTF-DCS, No. NAM-05/74/2016). The authors gratefully acknowledge CSIR-TWAS, NAM S&T, CSIR-NIIST, IIT Madras, and Ethiopian Ministry of Education.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Materials Science and Technology Division, National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (CSIR-NIIST), Thiruvananthapuram, 695019, India

    Elias Assayehegn & Ananthakumar Solaiappan

  2. National Centre for Catalysis Research, and Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras, Chennai, 600036, India

    Elias Assayehegn

  3. Faculty of Materials Science and Engineering, Jimma University, P.O. Box 378, Jimma, Ethiopia

    Elias Assayehegn

  4. Department of Chemistry, Addis Ababa University, P.O. Box 1176, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

    Yonas Chebudie

  5. Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Jimma University, Jimma, P.O. Box 378, Ethiopia

    Esayas Alemayehu

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  1. Elias Assayehegn
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  2. Ananthakumar Solaiappan
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  3. Yonas Chebudie
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  4. Esayas Alemayehu
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Correspondence to Elias Assayehegn or Esayas Alemayehu.

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Assayehegn, E., Solaiappan, A., Chebudie, Y. et al. Influence of temperature on preparing mesoporous mixed phase N/TiO2 nanocomposite with enhanced solar light photocatalytic activity. Front. Mater. Sci. 13, 352–366 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11706-019-0481-0

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