Preparation of N-doped and oxygen-deficient TiO2 microspheres via a novel electron beam-assisted method

Under the high-energy electron beam (EB) treatment, the formation of oxygen vacancies could take place on the surface of TiO2 microspheres. Then some of the oxygen vacancies on the surface of TiO2 microspheres could be substituted by nitrogen originating from urea. The TiO2 microspheres irradiated by EB under the dose of 140 kGy (NT-140) exhibit excellent visible light photocatalytic activity, and the photodegradation ratio of Rhodamine B reaches up to 99.6% within 80 min.274