Iron and Europium doped TiO₂ (titania) nanoparticles powders have been synthesised by a hydrothermal route starting with TiCl₄, FeCl₃.6H₂O and EuCl₃.6H₂O (Aldrich p.a.) as raw materials.  A stainless steel Teflon lined autoclave was utilized for the hydrothermal runs at 200 °C.  The structure, morphology and optical peculiarities were investigated by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM / HRTEM), extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS), Mössbauer spectroscopy and UV-Vis measurements.  The photocatalytic performance was analysed in the photodegradation of salicylic acid and phenol in water.  Rietveld refinements of XRD patterns reveal that the as resulted samples consist in iron and europium doped TiO₂ in the tetragonal-anatase structural shape, with particle dimensions as low as 16 nm.  The doping levels were limited to 1 at. % Fe and Eu, correspondingly.  By means of Mössbauer spectroscopy on both ⁵⁷Fe and ¹⁵¹Eu isotopes as well as by EXAFS analyses, the presence of Fe³⁺ and/or Eu³⁺ ions in the nanosised powders was evidenced.  It was found that both iron and europium ions can substitute titanium ions in the anatase structure.  From UV-Vis reflection spectra, by using the transformed Kubelka-Munk [1] functions, the band gap energy (E_g) for all hydrothermal samples has been determined in comparison with that of Degusa photocatalyst.  A decrease of E_g from 2.9 eV found for Degusa photacatalyst to 2.8 eV for the titania doped with 1 at. % Fe has been evidenced; this behaviour indicates a valuable absorption shift (~ 20 nm) to the visible light region, for the hydrothermally synthesised titania doped sample.  The photocatalytic properties in correlation with the structural and optical peculiarities of the hydrothermal samples are discussed.

1. W. N. Delgass, “Spectroscopy in Heterogeneous Catalysis”, Academic Press, New York, 1979.

• Legal notice:
  

  Copyright (c) Pielaszek Research, all rights reserved.
  The above materials, including auxiliary resources, are subject to Publisher's copyright and the Author(s) intellectual rights. Without limiting Author(s) rights under respective Copyright Transfer Agreement, no part of the above documents may be reproduced without the express written permission of Pielaszek Research, the Publisher. Express permission from the Author(s) is required to use the above materials for academic purposes, such as lectures or scientific presentations.
  In every case, proper references including Author(s) name(s) and URL of this webpage: https://science24.com/paper/10994 must be provided.

1. CdTe homojunction nanowire diodes
2. Magnetic properties of Co doped ZnO nanowires
3. Nickel nanotubes prepared by electroless deposition in ion track templates
4. Ni doped ZnO nanowires
5. TiO₂-noble metal particles based porous nanocomposites for pollutants sensitive detection via surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy
6. Fabrication and properties of multisegment metal-semiconductor-metal nanowires
7. Synthesis and characterization of nitrogen doped TiO₂ aerogels
8. ZnO:Mn:Cu nanowires prepared by template method
9. Deposition and properties of CdTe nanowires prepared by template replication