a visible light driven doped tio2 nanophotocatalyst: preparation and characterization

a useful nanophotocatalyst (la,s-tio2) was prepared by a sol-gel method and characterized by uv–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (drs), x-ray diffraction (xrd), photoluminescence emission spectroscopy (pl) and scanning electron microscopy (fesem). the results showed that the la,s-tio2, which calcined at 550 °c, contained only anatase phaseand its crystal size was 23 nm. in addition, the fesem analysis indicates that the la,s-tio2 nano particles with diameter of 20 to 25 nm could have a good dispersion in solution. in order to evaluate of activity of the modified synthesized photocatalyst (la,s-tio2), comparison between modified synthesized tio2 (la,s-tio2) and pure synthesized tio2 for degradation of methyl orange was investigated. it was found that the modified synthesized photocatalysis (la,s-tio2) has much higher photocatalytic activity than undoped tio2 for the degradation of contamination.