A New Route for the Synthesis of Visible-Light Driven Ag,V Co-Doped TiO2 for Degradation of Organic Pollutant

A novel Ag,V co-doped TiO2 was synthesized for the first time by a simple sol-gel hydrothermal method and was compared to pure and single doped TiO2. A red shift in the light absorption was observed and significant band gap reduction for Ag,V-TiO2 (2.2 eV) as compared to Ag-TiO2 (2.8 eV), V-TiO2 (2.3 eV), and TiO2 (2.9 eV) was observed. XRD results revealed both anatase and rutile phases. Ag,V-TiO2 the most active photocatalyst showed excellent photocatalytic abilities under visible light irradiation, achieving 99.83% MB removal within 15 min. The photocatalytic degradation performance had a direct relation with the intensity ratio of [101]/[110] plane of anatase to rutile phase of prepared TiO2 based photocatalysts.