Preparation of a Visible light Active N-doped TiO₂ Photocatalyst using Microwave Irradiation Technique

Abstract

Abstract The dye wastewater which directly discharges without treatment process will affect the environment. The semiconductor like titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) has gained attention as most potential material for photocatalysis process to treat the dye wastewater with act as photocatalyst. However, this semiconductor has their limitation toward the photodegradation under visible light irradiation. In this study, TiO 2 has been modified by doping with nitrogen (N) to improve the effectiveness under visible light irradiation. This simple prepared N-doped TiO 2 was prepared by mixing of TiO 2 powder with urea as N precursor under microwave irradiation instead of using muffle furnace as heating media. The nitogen was chemically bonded with TiO 2 as proven by XPS analysis. N-doped TiO 2 sample show active under visible light irradiation due to lower band gaps energy of sample observed by UV/Vis-DRS. An active photo response under visible light was observed from N-doped TiO 2 with 80 minutes time irradiation to complete the reactive red 4 (RR4) color removal, while no photocatalytic degradation was observed from unmodified TiO 2 under the same irradiation.