Structural Characterization and Photocatalytic Activity of Synthesized Carbon Modified TiO2 for Phenol Degradation

To promote the photocatalytic performance TiO2 and enlarge its application in visible region, carbon doped TiO2 (C/TiO2) composites were synthesized by wet impregnation method using sucrose as a precursor and used for phenol photocatalytic reaction. The synthesized products were characterized by Nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms (BET), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and UV-visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV-vis) techniques. The results showed that the obtained TiO2 was anatase phase in the C/TiO2 products, and its crystallite size was 11.7 nm, respectively. Carbon amount and calcined temperature of C/TiO2 can promote phenol removal. In this experiment, 5% carbon and 500 ℃ are the best choice for photocatalyst preparation. Under the UV light irradiation, 5%C/TiO2 (500 ℃, 2 h) exhibited the efficiency of 70.0% for phenol degradation within 150 min whereas TiO2 (500 ℃, 2 h) had 53.0% in the same duration of time. Also 5%C/TiO2 (500 ℃, 2 h) has higher photocatalytic performance under sunlight than pure TiO2. A combination of factors that include the smallest crystalline size, higher anatase percent, less band gap energy value and more oxygen vacant resulted in higher photocatalytic activities of 5%C/TiO2 (500 ℃, 2 h).