Title : Enhanced activity of TiO2-based photocatalyst under visible light: Selective Preparation of Ti3+/TiO2 /CNT and Ti3+/TiO2 /carbon layer nanocomposites

Abstract:

TiO2 is an effective photocatalyst; however, its wide bandgap limits its usefulness to the UV region. As a solution to this problem, a convenient route was developed for the selective preparation of two stable nanocomposites, Ti3+/TiO2 /CNT and Ti3+/TiO2 /carbon layer, from the same precursor by varying the amount of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) used in the synthesis. The nanocomposites exhibit a small bandgap and wide visible light (VL) absorption because of the introduction of carbonaceous species and Ti3+ vacancies. The nanocomposites exhibit excellent photocatalytic activity toward methylene blue, methyl orange, rhodamine B, and congo red dyes within 25 min. Also, the activity for colorless organic pollutant phenol degradation was tested and found very good activity. Higher reusability and structural integrity of the as-synthesized photocatalyst were confirmed within five consecutive runs by photocatalytic test and X-ray diffraction analysis, respectively. The resulting nanocomposites provide new insights into the development of VL-active and stable photocatalysts with high efficiencies.

Biography:

Jeasmin Akter is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Chemistry, Jeonbuk National University, South Korea. Her research area is ‘Photocatalytic Degradation of organic pollutants and Nanomaterial Synthesis’. She completed her BSc (Hons) and MSc in Chemistry from the University of Rajshahi. She has published her research work in highly reputed journals such as Nature Scientific Report, Mater. Sci. Semicond. Process, ACS-Applied Nanomaterials, Applied Surface Sciences, and J. of Photochem. Phtobiol. A, Nanomaterials, and so on.