Nonmetal species in the carbon modified TiO2 and its visible light photocatalytic activity

A carbon modified TiO2 (CT) was synthesized by hydrolyzing titanium tetrachloride with diethylamine and calcination at 400 °C. CT was then handled with a NaOH aqueous solution elution and a subsequent re-assembling treatment. X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), nitrogen adsorption–desorption analysis, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), thermogravimetric and differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA), chemical oxygen demand (COD) and UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) were then used to assess the changes of CT during the whole process. It is revealed that carbon in the CT should mostly be presented as surface deposited organic matters but not likely doped into the TiO2 lattice. CT exhibits obvious visible absorption and high photocatalytic activity for the degradation of 2,4-dichlorophenol (DCP) under visible light irradiation. Meanwhile, CT photocatalyst possesses excellent stability and reusability. NaOH solution elution washes off a large amount of surface deposited organics and worsens the visible absorbance and photocatalytic activity of CT, which can be well recovered by the re-assembling treatment. The re-assembled photocatalyst, CTSL, exhibits exhibits a very similar photocataytic activity with CT for degradation of DCP under the visible light irradiation, but is much higher than that of CTS.