Titania Nanoparticles Modified with Nitrogen: Enhanced Visible-light Photocatalytic Activity

Titanium dioxide (TiO2), for instance, is one of the most popular and promising materials in heterogeneous photocatalytic application. Several attempts have been made to induce bathochromic (red) shifts of the band gap of Titania in order to utilize the solar light. In this study we have reported the synthesis of nitrogen doped TiO2 nanoparticles by sol-gel method using urea and ammonia as the nitrogen source and by direct oxidation of TiN were tested for visible-light photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue and phenol. The catalysts were characterized by N2 adsorption desorption studies, X-ray diffraction and Diffuse reflectance UV-visible spectroscopy techniques. The chemically modified TiO2 shows strong absorption for visible light and high activities for the degradation of methylene blue and phenol aqueous solution. The presence of two different surface states characteristics of Pure and nitrogen doped TiO2 was confirmed by the shift in absorption from 398 nm to 405 nm and 409 nm from the DRUV-Visible spectral results. The spherical morphology of the catalysts was observed from the SEM images.