Characterization of Fe-doped TiO2 photocatalysts, prepared by sol-gel method

Abstract

Thin layers of pure TiO2 and TiO2 doped by different amounts of Fe203 liave been prepared by sol-gel metliod with tetraisopropyl ortliotitanate and Fe(NO3)3. Physicochemical properties of the catalysts were studied by the metliods of BET Adsorption, X-ray Diffraction (XRD), FE-SEM, as well as Raman, IR and UV-Vis spectroscopies. Photocatalytic activity of the obtained materials was investigated in tlie reaction of complete oxidation of p-xylene in gas phase under the radiation of UV (l = 365 nm) and Blue LED (l = 470 nm) lamps. It has been found that particle's size of all the samples is distributed in the range of 20-30 nm. The content of rutile phase in Fe-doped TiO2 samples varied from 6.8 to 41.8% depending on the Fe content. Iron oxide doped into Ti02 enables to move tlie photon absorbing zone of TiO2 from UV toward visible wave lengths as well as to reduce its band gap energy from 3.2 eV to 2.67 eV. Photocatalytic activities of tlie TiO2 samples promoted by Fe³⁺ have been found to be higher than those of pure TiO2.