SYNTHESIS, CHARACTERIZATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL APPLICATIONS OF CARBON, NITROGEN-CODOPED TITANIUM DIOXIDE NANOPARTICLES

Abstract

Titanium dioxide (TiO₂) is a promising material that has been extensively studied for its use in water treatment applications. However, pure TiO₂ performs poorly in the dark due to its small specific surface area, and it can only absorb ultraviolet light due to its large band gap. Therefore, this study is focused on developing methods for the synthesis of visible light-responsive TiO₂ with high performance in the dark. The as-synthesized C, N-codoped TiO₂ in this study were found to have a large specific surface area, small particle size and band gap, high pollutant removal efficiencies (acridine orange (AO) and methylene blue (MB) were used as the model pollutants) in the dark and visible light conditions. It was discovered that the degradation of organic pollutants in the dark could be realized by using this material. It could be easily recovered by sedimentation due to its high bulk density and could be regenerated with combined visible light/H₂O₂ treatment.