Structural, photochemical and photocatalytic properties of zirconium oxide doped TiO_2 nanocrystallites

摘要

Composite photocatalysts composed of TiO_2 and ZrO_2 have been prepared via the sol-gel method. The as-prepared nanocomposites are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), UV-vis spectrometry and fluorescence emission spectra. The results shows that TiO_2/ZrO_2 nanocomposites are composed of mainly anatase titania and tetragonal ZrO_2. Incorporating TiO_2 particles with ZrO_2 plays an important role in promoting the formation of nanoparticles with an anatase structure and leads to decreased fluorescence emission intensity. Most of the TiO_2 /ZrO_2 nanocomposites exhibited comparable photocatalytic activity compared with commercial TiO_2 for the degradation aqueous methyl orange (MO) under ultraviolet irradiation, while the composite with Zr/Ti mass ratio of 15.2% shows the highest photocatalytic performances. Furthermore, the as-prepared nanocomposites can be reused with little photocatalytic activity loss. Without any further treatment besides rinsing, the photocatalytic activity of TiO_2/ZrO_2 (15.2%) composites is still higher than after five-cycle utilization.