Hydrothermal preparation, characterization and photocatalytic activity of TiO2/Fe-TiO2 composite catalysts

Highly active TiO2/Fe-TiO2 composite photocatalysts with a p-n heterojunction structure have been prepared by mixing hydrothermal-derived TiO2 and Fe-TiO2 nano-powders followed by grinding and drying. These photocatalysts were characterized by XPS, XRD, TEM, BET, UV-vis and Fluorescence spectroscopy, and their photocatalytic activities were evaluated by the decolorization rate of methyl orange under UV irradiation. TiO2/Fe-TiO2 composite photocatalysts were generally shown to have a much higher photocatalytic destruction rate than pure TiO2, mainly due to electrostatic-field-driven electron-hole separation in TiO2/Fe-TiO2 composites. The best TiO2/Fe-TiO2 composite photocatalyst with mass ratio TiO2:0.5 at%Fe-TiO2 of 12:1 showed approximately 3.8 times higher photocatalytic activity than undoped TiO2. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd and Techna Group S.r.l. All rights reserved.