Effect of Nitrogen-doping on photocatalytic activity of nanosized TiO2 catalyst

Nitrogen-doped titania (TiO 2 ) photocatalyst were prepared by a simple sol-gel method using tetrabutyl titanate and triethylamine as precursors.The photocatalytic decomposition of methyl orange (MO) solution was used as a probe reaction to estimate the photocatalytic activity under ultraviolet and simulated visible light irradiation.The physical and photophysical properties of the photocatalyst were characterized by XRD, UV-Vis DRS and XPS.The results indicate that the simulated visible light photocatalytic ability of catalysts is improved, especially the nitrogen-doped sample calcined at 500℃(N500) showed excellent photocatalytic activity for methyl orange (MO) degradation under simulated visible light irradiation ,which could be attributed to the nitrogen doping.