Studies on nitrogen modified TiO2 photocatalyst prepared in different conditions

Nitrogen modified titania photocatalysts (TiO2/N) were characterized using high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), dynamic light scattering (DLS), Raman spectroscopy and BET surface area method. The presence of nitrogen in modified photocatalysts has been studied using FT-IR and XPS analyses. The influence of the calcination temperature in the range of 100–350 °C on nanocrystallite as well as particle size of the samples and their photocatalytic activity was investigated. The calcination of TiO2/N samples caused a growth of the particle size and an increase of their crystallinity. TEM studies present changes of the diameter and shape of TiO2 particles and nanocrystallites. The XRD and the Raman response of the samples confirmed an increase of the crystallinity of the samples when annealed at higher temperatures.The photocatalytic activity of the modified photocatalysts was determined using the reaction of phenol decomposition. It was shown that phenol decomposition rate was greatly influenced by pH of the solution. The highest phenol degradation using all the modified samples was observed for pH 7.1 which is close to the PZC point established for pristine TiO2 at pH 6.8.