Synthesis of highly water-dispersible N-doped anatase titania based on low temperature solvent-thermal method

Abstract

In this paper, the high-concentration aqueous dispersion N-doped anatase TiO2 is prepared based on low temperature non-aqueous solvent-thermal method by using TCl4 and NH4Cl as titanium source and nitrogen source respectively. From TEM image, we can learn that the particle is composed of spindle-shaped particles with the size from 8 to 15 nm. According to the XRD and XPS spectra of N-doped TiO2, it can be seen that, during the synthesis process, N atoms permeate into the TiO2 lattice, and the impurity level can be formed within the band gap of TiO2. The impurity level can extend to absorb UV and the visible light. As for N-doped TiO2 nanoparticle of XPS spectrum, ethanol is used as solvent to form carbonaceous species on the surface of TiO2. The carbonaceous species in visible light can excite electrons towards the TiO2 conduction band, so as to increase the number of electrons in the conduction band under visible light to improve the catalytic activity of TiO2 which possesses the feature of high catalytic activity under UV–visible light. Keywords: TiO2 nanoparticle, Highly aqueous dispersion, Visible light photocatalytic activity