Direct in situ synthesis of Fe2O3-codoped N-doped TiO2 nanoparticles with enhanced photocatalytic and photo-electrochemical properties

Herein, we report a facile and simple method for large-scale synthesis of Fe2O3-codoped N-doped TiO2 (Fe2O3/N-TiO2) nanoparticles. The nanoparticles were prepared by calcining a homogeneous mixture of titanium nitride (TiN) and ferric hydroxide colloid (Fe(OH) 3 gel) at 500 degrees C in air and characterized in detail in terms of their morphological, structural, optical, compositional and surface properties using various analytical techniques. Further, the photocatalytic and photo-electrochemical properties of synthesized nanoparticles were also explored and presented in this paper. As an efficient photocatalyst, the prepared Fe2O3/N-TiO2 nanoparticles exhibited enhanced photocatalytic performance towards the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) compared with commercially available P-25 (4.8 times) and prepared N-TiO2 (1.2 times) nanoparticles. Further, the Fe2O3/N-TiO2 nanoparticles exhibited a remarkably improved visible-light photo-electrochemical performance and the maximum photo-conversion efficiency increased about 4.7 times compared to bare N-TiO2. The observed results confirmed the Fe2O3 doping in the N-TiO2 significantly enhanced the visible light absorption and hence exhibited excellent photocatalytic and photo-electrochemical performances. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.