Synthesis and characterization of Co-doped nano-TiO2 through co-precipitation method for photocatalytic activity

• Published in: Journal of materials science. Materials in electronics Vol. 29; no. 11; pp. 8914 - 8922
• Main Authors: Lassoued, Mohamed Saber, Lassoued, Abdelmajid, Ammar, Salah, Gadri, Abdellatif, Salah, Abdelhamid Ben, García-Granda, Santiago
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.06.2018; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Anatase; Band gap; Catalytic activity; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Cobalt; Coprecipitation; Dyes; Electrical properties; Electron microscopy; Heat treatment; Materials Science; Optical and Electronic Materials; Optical properties; Photocatalysis; Photoluminescence; Reflectance; Synthesis; Thermal analysis; Titanium; Titanium dioxide; X-ray diffraction
• ISSN: 0957-4522; 1573-482X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10854-018-8910-x

The aim of this work was synthesis and investigation of various properties of Co-doped titanium dioxide nanostructures. Synthesis was conducted by the co-precipitation method using cobalt nitrate and titanium isopropoxide as a precursor, followed by thermal treatment at a temperature of 500 °C. The materials were fully characterized using several techniques (X-ray diffraction XRD, SEM, FTIR, TGA/DTA, UV–Vis diffuse reflectance DRS and photoluminescence). However, dopant has no effect on XRD pattern of the host but it can influence on the various characteristics of host such as optical and electrical properties. The scanning electron microscopy was used to detect the morphology of synthesized nanoparticles which sizes changed with the altitude in the doping concentration to 6%. FTIR spectra exhibit broad peaks where anatase phases of TiO 2 demonstrate very sharp UV–Vis band gap results showed the reduction in band gap from from 3.21 eV, for undoped TiO 2 , to 2.74 eV, for Co doped 6% TiO 2 . The photocatalytic activity of the samples were studied based on the degradation of methyl orange as a model compound, where the results showed that Co doped 6% TiO 2 a good photocatalytic activity.