Effect of heating temperature on photocatalytic activities of carbon-doped TiO2 photocatalysts

With the purpose to investigate the effect of heating temperature on the visible-light photocatalytic activities of carbon-doped TiO2, TiO2 photocatalysts doped with different amounts of carbon were synthesized through heating the dried gel at different temperatures from 70 to 350 °C. XRD, XPS, UV-Vis analysis were used to characterize the photocatalysts. The photocatalysts are all of anatase phase with specific surface areas higher than 240 m²/g. Carbon could be doped into TiO2 after drying the gel at 70 °C. The concentration of doped carbon changes with the rising of calcination temperature. The photocatalyst calcination at 300 °C shows the highest photocatalytic activity under visible light irradiation, which is just a comprehensive result of physical properties of the photocatalysts.