Photocatalytic Degradation of Organic Pollutants by Using Nanocrystalline Boron-doped TiO2 Catalysts

In this work, bare or mixed environmentally non-benign organic pollutants have been decontaminated using boron-doped TiO2 nanoparticles (B@TiO2). B@TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) with varying content of boron (0.0 to 7.0 mol %) are synthesized using sol-gel method. These NPs are characterized by using different tools. XRD reveals the high crystalline nature with formation of anatase phase and also shows slight increase in crystallite size with increase in boron content in TiO2 host lattice. The optical shift towards higher wavelength increases with increase of boron doping and hence corresponding decrease in optical band gap of doped NPs is confirmed. FTIR and TGA studies reveal the increase of surface hydroxylation of NPs with increase in dopant content. B@TiO2 samples have been used for the photocatalytic degradation of bisphenol A, rhodamine B, methylene blue, methyl orange and mixture of these three dyes under sunlight illumination. 7.0 mol % B@TiO2 has shown the best activity than other prepared samples. Rate of degradation of mixed dyes using 7.0 mol % B@TiO2 is about seven times higher to that of bare TiO2 and also shown higher rate than other doped samples.

Automated summary

In this study, boron-doped TiO2 nanoparticles were used to decontaminate environmentally non-benign organic pollutants, with the 7.0 mol % B@TiO2 showing the highest photocatalytic degradation activity among all samples tested.