New visible light driven photocatalysts of 1 mol% Cr doped TiO2 supported on TUD-1 have been successfully synthesized. The Cr-TiO2/xTUD-1 (x = 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50) photocatalysts were prepared via surfactant-free sol-gel method followed by wet impregnation procedures. XRD analysis revealed that both TiO2 and Cr were incorporated in the highly porous siliceous matrix. FTIR analysis showed the existence of Si-O-Ti in all the materials. As observed, tetrahedral-coordinated Ti species were dominant in Cr-TiO2/10TUD-1, Cr-TiO2/20TUD-1 and Cr-TiO2/30TUD-1. Meanwhile, octahedral- coordinated Ti species were the dominant species in Cr-TiO2/40TUD-1 and Cr-TiO2/50TUD-1. It has been demonstrated that the amount of TUD-1 as photocatalyst support affected the wavelength response and the bandgap energy of the resulting materials. All the materials have bandgap energy of ~2.9 eV. The photocatalytic performance of the synthesized materials was tested out in dye photodegradation under visible light irradiation at 298 K for 5 hours. Results showed that all Cr-TiO2/TUD-1 materials had higher photocatalytic activity than that of Cr-TiO2. This could be explained by the high surface area and porosity provided by TUD-1 in enhancing the adsorption and diffusivities of the dye molecules, hence leading to the promising photocatalytic activity. Among the materials prepared, Cr-TiO2/30TUD-1 appeared as the most superior photocatalyst which gave the highest dye photodegradation.
Microwave treated sol–gel synthesis and characterization of hybrid ZnS–RGO composites for efficient photodegradation of dyes
