A simple solution combustion route for the preparation of metal-doped TiO2 nanoparticles and their photocatalytic degradation properties

In this paper, we report the successful synthesis of metal ion-doped TiO(2) nanoparticles via a simple solution combustion method employing a mixture of ethanol and ethyleneglycol (v/v = 30/20) as the solvent, tetra-n-butyl titanate Ti(OC(4)H(9))(4), TBOT] as the titanium source and oxygen gas in the atmosphere as the oxygen source, in the presence of small amounts of metal ions such as Cu(2+), Mn(2+), Ce(3+) and Sn(4+). The as-obtained products were characterized by means of powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectra (DRS) and photoluminescence (PL) spectra of various metal ion-doped products were investigated. Experiments showed that the metal ion-doped TiO(2) nanoparticles presented a stronger photocatalytic ability for the degradation of organic dyes, including Pyronine B, Safranine T and Methylene blue (MB), under visible light/254 nm UV light irradiation than commercial P25 within the same time.