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N-doped TiO2 for photocatalytic degradation of colorless and colored organic pollutants under visible light irradiation

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Abstract

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) can only be stimulated by UV light, making its real application for photocatalytic water treatments ineffective, particularly under sunlight and visible light irradiation. As a result, significant efforts have been conducted over the last decades to fabricate visible light-active TiO2 photocatalysts through band-gap engineering. Herein, nitrogen-doped titanium dioxide (N-TiO2) photocatalysts were effectively prepared by utilizing a simple sol–gel process with ethanol as a single solvent and urea as the nitrogen source under ambient temperature and pressure. The effects of urea concentration (0, 2, 4, 6 urea/TTIP mol ratio) on the optical, structural, morphological, and photocatalytic properties of the photocatalysts were investigated. SEM morphology revealed an aggregated nano-spherical shape in all samples. HR-TEM and SAED patterns showed an anatase phase of 2-N-TiO2. The X-ray diffraction analysis also showed a pure anatase phase for pure TiO2, 2-N-TiO2, and 4-N-TiO2. However, the crystalline phase transformed to amorphous for 6-N-TiO2. The crystallite size reduced from 14.16 to 9.76 nm upon increasing urea concentration. The band-gap energy of N-TiO2 also decreased from 3.25 to 2.95 eV. Furthermore, the photocatalytic experiment was examined for the degradation of colorless and colored pollutants, such as salicylic acid (SA), methyl blue (MB), and rhodamine B (RhB). The results showed the photocatalytic activity of 2-N-TiO2 exhibited an optimum efficiency compared to the 4-N-TiO2 and 6-N-TiO2, for photocatalytic degradation of SA (k = 0.0265 min−1), MB (k = 0.0180 min−1) and RhB (k = 0.1071 min−1), under visible light irradiation. Therefore, the results suggest that crystallite size, urea (as an N dopant) concentration, and organic model pollutants were critical parameters for the photocatalytic activity of N-TiO2 under visible irradiation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by "Net Zero Emission-BRIN" program with contract number of 1567/II.7/HK.01.00/3/2023; and also funded by “Program Riset dan Inovasi untuk Indonesia Maju Gelombang 3" with contract number of 12/II.7/HK/2023; and supported by the Ministry for Innovation and Technology of Hungary from the National Research, Development and Innovation Fund, financed under the 2021 Thematic Excellence Program funding scheme with a grant number TKP2021-NKTA-21.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Center for Advanced Materials, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), South Tangerang, Indonesia

    Abdul Wafi, Demas Aji & Deni Shidqi Khaerudini

  2. Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine and Health Science, Universitas Islam Negeri Maulana Malik Ibrahim, Malang, Indonesia

    Abdul Wafi

  3. Research Center for Nanotechnology Systems, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), South Tangerang, Indonesia

    Liszulfah Roza & Gerald Ensang Timuda

  4. Research Center for Energy Conversion and Conservation, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), South Tangerang, Indonesia

    Nono Darsono

  5. Research Center for Photonics, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), South Tangerang, Indonesia

    Nurfina Yudasari

  6. Research Group of Environmental and Inorganic Photochemistry, Center for Natural Sciences, University of Pannonia, Veszprém, Hungary

    Erzsébet Szabó-Bárdos & Ottó Horváth

  7. Chemical Sciences, Faculty of Science, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Jalan Tungku Link, Gadong, BE1410, Brunei Darussalam

    Mohammad Mansoob Khan

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  1. Abdul Wafi
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Contributions

AW contributed to conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, methodology, investigation, visualization, and writing—original draft. LR contributed to methodology, investigation, data curation and visualization. GET contributed to conceptualization, data curation, funding acquisition, supervision, validation, and writing—review and editing. DA contributed to validation, and writing—review and editing. DSK contributed to validation, and writing—review and editing. ND contributed to validation, and writing—review and editing. NY contributed to data curation and investigation. E.S.-B contributed to validation, and writing—review and editing, supervision. OH contributed to validation, and writing—review and editing, supervision. MMK contributed to validation, and writing—review and editing, supervision.

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Correspondence to Abdul Wafi.

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Wafi, A., Roza, L., Timuda, G.E. et al. N-doped TiO2 for photocatalytic degradation of colorless and colored organic pollutants under visible light irradiation. Transit Met Chem (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11243-024-00584-9

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