Innovative W-doped titanium dioxide anchored on clay for photocatalytic removal of atrazine

Innovative W-TiO2/clay photocatalysts were successfully synthesized by a facile sol-gel method using different W dopant concentrations (0.5, 2 and 5 M%). The obtained photocatalysts were characterized by XRD, TEM, XPS, textural analysis and DRS-UV-vis spectroscopy. The W-TiO2/clay photocatalysts have TiO2 as anatase phase, where W dopant caused the increase of its crystal size and the distortion of its lattice, due to W substitution of Ti ions. W dopant also modified the electronic properties of anatase, resulting in moderately narrower band gap of photocatalysts. Photocatalytic activity measurements showed that W-TiO2/clay catalyst with 5% of W possed the best photocatalytic performance for the removal of atrazine under solar light compared to un-doped TiO2/clay, which was explained by the presence of W ions in the TiO2 structure. The relevance of W doping on the photocatalytic performance of these photocatalysts was also corroborated studying the activity under visible light. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.