Effect of Urea Addition on Anatase Phase Enrichment and Nitrogen Doping of TiO<sub>2</sub> for Photocatalytic Abatement of Methylene Blue
TiO<sub>2</sub>-based materials are commonly employed as photocatalysts for industrial wastewater treatment. The primary reasons of employing TiO<sub>2</sub> include cost effectiveness, ready availability, eco-friendliness, non-toxic behavior, and exceptional resistance towar...
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doaj-700321e975b741a4acd57dba3ffabef82021-09-09T13:40:00ZengMDPI AGApplied Sciences2076-34172021-09-01118264826410.3390/app11178264Effect of Urea Addition on Anatase Phase Enrichment and Nitrogen Doping of TiO<sub>2</sub> for Photocatalytic Abatement of Methylene BlueMaira Asif0Muhammad Zafar1Parveen Akhter2Murid Hussain3Adeel Umer4Abdul Razzaq5Woo-Young Kim6Department of Chemistry, The University of Lahore, 1-Km Raiwind Road, Lahore 54000, PakistanInstitute of Energy and Environmental Engineering, University of the Punjab, Lahore 54590, PakistanDepartment of Chemistry, The University of Lahore, 1-Km Raiwind Road, Lahore 54000, PakistanDepartment of Chemical Engineering, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore 54000, PakistanSchool of Chemical and Materials Engineering (SCME), National University of Sciences and Technology, Sector H-12, Islamabad 44000, PakistanDepartment of Chemical Engineering, COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore 54000, PakistanDepartment of Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Applied Energy System, Jeju National University, Jeju-si 63243, KoreaTiO<sub>2</sub>-based materials are commonly employed as photocatalysts for industrial wastewater treatment. The primary reasons of employing TiO<sub>2</sub> include cost effectiveness, ready availability, eco-friendliness, non-toxic behavior, and exceptional resistance towards photo-corrosion. However, the wider band gap of pure TiO<sub>2</sub> restricts its performance because of its optical absorption of solar light to the ultraviolet (UV) region only, and to some extent of photo-excited charge recombination. In the present work an attempt is made to develop a facile synthesis approach by using urea, a cheap chemical precursor, to form nitrogen doped TiO<sub>2</sub> with the key objective of extended light absorption and thus enhanced photocatalytic performance. It was also observed that the urea-induced anatase phase enrichment of TiO<sub>2</sub> is another key factor in promoting the photocatalytic performance. The photocatalysts prepared by varying the amount of urea as a nitrogen dopant precursor, are characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and photoluminescence (PL) to evaluate their crystallinity, morphology, functional groups, and charge separation properties, respectively. Moreover, the surface area was also estimated by physicochemical adsorption. The maximum nitrogen-doped sample yielded >99% photodegradation efficiency of methylene blue (MB) dye-simulated wastewater as compared to a pure TiO<sub>2</sub> sample which exhibited 6.46% efficiency. The results show that the simultaneous factors of nitrogen doping and anatase phase enhancement contributes significantly towards the improvement of photocatalytic performance.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/17/8264photocatalysisnitrogen dopinganatase phase enrichmenttextile wastewater treatment |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Maira Asif Muhammad Zafar Parveen Akhter Murid Hussain Adeel Umer Abdul Razzaq Woo-Young Kim |
spellingShingle |
Maira Asif Muhammad Zafar Parveen Akhter Murid Hussain Adeel Umer Abdul Razzaq Woo-Young Kim Effect of Urea Addition on Anatase Phase Enrichment and Nitrogen Doping of TiO<sub>2</sub> for Photocatalytic Abatement of Methylene Blue Applied Sciences photocatalysis nitrogen doping anatase phase enrichment textile wastewater treatment |
author_facet |
Maira Asif Muhammad Zafar Parveen Akhter Murid Hussain Adeel Umer Abdul Razzaq Woo-Young Kim |
author_sort |
Maira Asif |
title |
Effect of Urea Addition on Anatase Phase Enrichment and Nitrogen Doping of TiO<sub>2</sub> for Photocatalytic Abatement of Methylene Blue |
title_short |
Effect of Urea Addition on Anatase Phase Enrichment and Nitrogen Doping of TiO<sub>2</sub> for Photocatalytic Abatement of Methylene Blue |
title_full |
Effect of Urea Addition on Anatase Phase Enrichment and Nitrogen Doping of TiO<sub>2</sub> for Photocatalytic Abatement of Methylene Blue |
title_fullStr |
Effect of Urea Addition on Anatase Phase Enrichment and Nitrogen Doping of TiO<sub>2</sub> for Photocatalytic Abatement of Methylene Blue |
title_full_unstemmed |
Effect of Urea Addition on Anatase Phase Enrichment and Nitrogen Doping of TiO<sub>2</sub> for Photocatalytic Abatement of Methylene Blue |
title_sort |
effect of urea addition on anatase phase enrichment and nitrogen doping of tio<sub>2</sub> for photocatalytic abatement of methylene blue |
publisher |
MDPI AG |
series |
Applied Sciences |
issn |
2076-3417 |
publishDate |
2021-09-01 |
description |
TiO<sub>2</sub>-based materials are commonly employed as photocatalysts for industrial wastewater treatment. The primary reasons of employing TiO<sub>2</sub> include cost effectiveness, ready availability, eco-friendliness, non-toxic behavior, and exceptional resistance towards photo-corrosion. However, the wider band gap of pure TiO<sub>2</sub> restricts its performance because of its optical absorption of solar light to the ultraviolet (UV) region only, and to some extent of photo-excited charge recombination. In the present work an attempt is made to develop a facile synthesis approach by using urea, a cheap chemical precursor, to form nitrogen doped TiO<sub>2</sub> with the key objective of extended light absorption and thus enhanced photocatalytic performance. It was also observed that the urea-induced anatase phase enrichment of TiO<sub>2</sub> is another key factor in promoting the photocatalytic performance. The photocatalysts prepared by varying the amount of urea as a nitrogen dopant precursor, are characterized using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and photoluminescence (PL) to evaluate their crystallinity, morphology, functional groups, and charge separation properties, respectively. Moreover, the surface area was also estimated by physicochemical adsorption. The maximum nitrogen-doped sample yielded >99% photodegradation efficiency of methylene blue (MB) dye-simulated wastewater as compared to a pure TiO<sub>2</sub> sample which exhibited 6.46% efficiency. The results show that the simultaneous factors of nitrogen doping and anatase phase enhancement contributes significantly towards the improvement of photocatalytic performance. |
topic |
photocatalysis nitrogen doping anatase phase enrichment textile wastewater treatment |
url |
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/17/8264 |
work_keys_str_mv |
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