Enhanced charge carrier efficiency and solar light-induced photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nanoparticles through doping of silver nanoclusters and C–N–S nonmetals

C–N–S-tridoped TiO2 nanoparticles is synthesized via sol–gel method using cysteine as nonmetals source. Moreover, to suppress recombination of photogenerated charge carriers, silver nanoclusters are deposited over C–N–S-tridoped TiO2 via photodeposition technique and the catalyst Ag@C,N,S–TiO2 is developed. The prepared catalysts are characterized by XRD, SEM-EDAX, TEM, XPS, IR, Raman, UV–vis DRS, and N2 adsorption–desorption isotherms. Our findings show that Ag@C,N,S–TiO2 catalyst has an excellent and outstanding photocatalytic performance compared to that of pure TiO2 and commercial TiO2 P25 which the reason is attributed to improved visible-light harvesting, enhanced organic pollutant adsorption and increased photo-efficiency in separation of the charge carriers.

Graphical abstractXPS spectra of newly developed Ag@C,N,S–TiO2 nanophotocatalyst.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide