Structural studies and photocatalytic properties of Mn and Zn co-doping on TiO2 prepared by single step sonochemical method

Abstract

Titanium dioxide nanoparticles dual doped with zinc and manganese were prepared by the single step of sonochemical method using the sonicator with 20 kHz and 750 W for 30 min. Phase structure analysis results showed that the pure anatase phase was detected for all prepared samples. TEM analysis reveals the nanosized structure with uniformity of nanoparticles. The calculated bandgap energies change to be below the typical band gap energy of bare TiO2 and single doped sample suggesting high ability to harvest visible light. X-ray absorption spectroscopy was conducted to investigate the electronics structure and to study the local structure of prepared samples. XANES results confirmed the existence of Ti4+ ions in all prepared samples with anatase crystal structure. EXAFS analysis indicates the Ti4+ site was substituted by Mn and Zn dopant ions. The photocatalytic performance was evaluated by degradation of Rhodamine B dye solution under visible light irradiation. The results revealed that the dually Mn–Zn doped TiO2 sample exhibited excellent photocatalytic activity comparing to single doped and pure TiO2. The complete degradation of dye was achieved at optimum condition of 1 mol%-Zn and 2 mol%-Mn molar ratio. The highest photodegradation rate constant was found to be 0.0238 min−1, which is 10 times greater than pure-TiO2 samples.