Synthesis of iron-doped TiO2 nanoparticles by ball-milling process : the influence of process parameters on the structural, optical, magnetic, and photocatalytic properties

摘要

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) absorbs only a smallfraction of incoming sunlight in the visible region thuslimiting its photocatalytic efficiency and concomitantphotocatalytic ability. The large-scale application of TiO2nanoparticles has been limited due to the need of using anultraviolet excitation source to achieve high photocatalyticactivity. The inclusion of foreign chemical elements in theTiO2 lattice can tune its band gap resulting in an absorptionedge red-shifted to lower energies enhancing the photocatalyticperformance in the visible region of the electromagneticspectrum. In this research work, TiO2nanoparticles were doped with iron powder in a planetaryball-milling system using stainless steel balls. Thecorrelation between milling rotation speeds with structuraland morphologic characteristics, optical and magneticproperties, and photocatalytic abilities of bare and FedopedTiO2 powders was studied and discussed.