Development of Energy-Efficient Semiconductor Photocatalyst via controlled doping for the Remediation of Aquatic Pollutants

Abstract

Titania (TiO2) has most popularly been used for the remediation of multiple environmental pollutants via an advanced oxidation process. However, its wide band gap hinders its application as it poorly absorbs visible light. Here, multiple metals and non metals as dopants were used to prepare titania based nano photocatalysts, and their photoexcitation nature and degradation efficacy on multiple pollutants such as azo dyes, phenolic compounds, etc. under solar irradiation were studied. The study was also tested for finding the suitable dopant and their optimum range of doping for maximum photocatalytic degradation of multiple aquatic pollutants using the catalyst under sunlight. Degradation was confirmed by FTIR, absorption spectroscopy, COD, TOC, and scavenging tests. Parameters including dopant concentration, band gap, catalyst size, recombination rate, sunlight exposure time, degradation rate, catalyst dosage, etc. were used for designing an optimized model toward finding the best combination of a titania based photocatalyst system. Our study demonstrated that a straightforward approach can be designed for synthesizing metal and non metal doped nano Titanium dioxide photocatalyst, thus offering a better understanding of the functionalized catalyst to produce cost effective and energy efficient solutions for the degradation of multiple aquatic pollutants and thus holding a great promise for environmental remediation.