Abstract:

A Fe3+-doped nanosized TiO2 photocatalyst was synthesized from a sol-gel based self-propagating high-temperature synthesis process(SHS) with TiCl4 as the raw material. Its photocatalytic activity was studied by probing the degradation of methylene blue(MB) under different light irradiations including sunlight, low and high pressure mercury lamps. XRD and SEM results indicate that the as-prepared nanoscale TiO2 powder is a porous anatase material after SHS at 350 ℃ and heat-treatment at 500 ℃. The optimal precursor molar ratio of n(Ti)∶n(citric acid)∶n(NH4NO3) is 1∶3∶5，the particle size is ~20 nm. Experimental results show that the highest photocatalytic activity of Fe3+-doped TiO2 could be achieved when the molar ratio of Fe3+ to TiO2 is 0.02%. Removing rate of MB was 96.1% with Fe3+-doped TiO2 as catalyst and sunlight as light source, which is 1.78 times of that of pure TiO2.

Key words: sol-gel based self-propagating high-temperature synthesis process, Fe3+-doped, TiO2, photocatalysis