Preparation of iodine doped titanium dioxide to photodegrade aqueous bisphenol A under visible light

• Iodine-doped titanium dioxide photocatalyst degraded aqueous bisphenol A.
• The probable reaction mechanism was IO4− and IO3− increasing the photocatalytic efficiency of TiO2.
• Ten recycling experiments demonstrated the stability and reusability.

Highly photoactive iodine-doped titanium dioxide (I-doped TiO2) photocatalysts were synthesized to degrade aqueous bisphenol A (BPA) under irradiation by visible light and sunlight. The band gap energies of TiO2 and I-doped TiO2 (I/Ti mole ratio = 0.5%) were 3.01 and 3.04, and the BPA photodegradation rate constants were 1.61, and 5.11 h−1, respectively. The most probable reaction mechanism was proposed to involve IO4− and IO3− as electron acceptors that generate an inductive effect, increasing the photocatalytic efficiency of TiO2. Results indicated that I-doped TiO2 not only acted favorably as a photocatalyst, but also exhibited considerable mineralization effects. In addition, a recycling test after ten experiments demonstrated the stability and reusability of the photocatalyst.