Synergistic antibacterial activity of TiO2 co-doped with zinc and yttrium

• Zn–Y/TiO2 nano materials firstly applied to the fields of antibacterial materials.
• Zinc ions and yttrium ions exist in the form of Zn2TiO8, ZnTiO3 and Y2Ti2O7 phase.
• Doping Zn and Y greatly strengthened the antibacterial activity of TiO2.

In this study, a sol–gel method was successfully developed to synthesize zinc and/or yttrium doped titania powders. The as-prepared materials were characterized by X-ray diffraction pattern (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and X-ray photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. It was found that the phase structures of as-prepared materials were transformed from anatase TiO2 to rutile TiO2 by elevated calcination temperatures, accompanied with Zn3TiO8, ZnTiO3 and Y2Ti2O7 phases appearance. Photocatalytic antibacterial experimental study implied that zinc and yttrium co-doped titania exhibited better performance than zinc or yttrium doped alone under visible light irradiation. The enhanced photocatalytic effect was ascribed to co-doping of Zn and Y in TiO2.