A visible light driven doped TiO^sub 2^ nanophotocatalyst: Preparation and characterization

In this paper, a useful nanophotocatalyst (La,S-TiO2) was prepared by a sol-gel method and characterized by UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, photoluminescence emission spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The results showed that the La,S-TiO2, which calcined at 550 °C, contained only anatase phase and its crystal size was 23 nm. In addition, the FESEM analysis indicates that the La,S-TiO2 nanoparticles with diameter of 20 to 25 nm could have a good dispersion in solution. In order to evaluate of activity of the modified synthesized photocatalyst (La,S-TiO2), comparison between modified synthesized TiO2 (La,S-TiO2) and pure synthesized TiO2 for degradation of methyl orange was investigated. It was found that the modified synthesized photocatalysis (La,S-TiO2) has much higher photocatalytic activity than undoped TiO2 for the degradation of contamination.