Experimental Studies of Photocatalytic Degradation of Rhodamine B by Doped Titania under Solar Light Radiation

The photocatalytic degradation of aqueous solutions of rhodamine Bin doped titania suspensions have been investigated with the use of sunlight as energy source. Semiconductor photocatalysis is anresourceful method for the chemical consumption of energy from sunlight. It is based on the surface trapping of light-generated charges which induce interfacial electron-transfer reactions with a great variety of substrates. A visible-light-active photocatalyst was prepared through carbon doping by using dextrose as carbon source. Preparation was performed by a sol-gel method at 400 C and named as1C-TiO2. The effects of catalyst loading, dye concentration, pH and component on the phase composition and photocatalytic activity were investigated. The results demonstrated that carbon atoms are exist in the structure of titania and led to the response to visible light. The resulting photocatalyst was characterized by XRD, SEM, EDX. The decrease in concentration of rhodamineB was monitored by UV-Visible spectroscopy. The characterizations found that the photocatalyst possessed a high surface area and a crystalline size is about 10 nm. On the degradation of rhodamine B in water under visible light irradiation [lamda = 554 nm]. The photocatalytic activity increased with decrease in concentration of catalyst and increase in light intensity and alkaline pH.