Effect of rutile TiO2 on the photocatalytic performance of g-C3N4/brookite-TiO2-xNy photocatalyst for NO decomposition

Novel g-C3N4/rutile-brookite TiO(2-x)Ny composite photocatalysts were fabricated through a facile solvothermal approach. The effect of rutile phase TiO2 with brookite TiO2 and g-C3N4 on the photocatalytic activity of g-C3N4/nitrogen-doped TiO2 composite was studied. The photocatalytic performance of the photocatalyst was evaluated by measuring the degradation of NO gas under visible and UV light irradiation. It is suggested that g-C3N4/rutile-brookite TiO2-xNy forms a Z-scheme photocatalytic system, which shows improvement on the photocatalytic activity than that of g-C3N4/single brookite TiO2-xNy. By importing rutile phase TiO2-xNy, the photogenerated electrons can efficiently transfer from rutile TiO2 to g-C3N4, which results in the separation of electron and hole pairs, enhancing the photocatalytic ability. However, single brookite TiO2-xNy can not remove the photogenerated electrons efficiently and the photocatalytic performances of composites decrease with g-C3N4 amount increase. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.