Enhancement of visible light photocatalytic removal of residual tetracycline by Ni doped WO3 nano structures

In this study, Ni was used to dope into WO3 structure to improve its photocatalytic performance for tetracycline degradation. The obtained characterized results indicated that Ni dopants acted as nuclei during crystallization resulting in crystal size increase. However, Nickel dopants substituted several Tungsten elements in the WO3 leading to lattice distortion preventing agglomeration of these newly formed Ni-WO3 crystals resulting in particle size decrease. Thus, Ni-WO3 crystals were larger than WO3 crystals while Ni-WO3 particles were much smaller than WO3 particles. Ni dopants also induced formation of mesopore on WO3 surface resulting in surface areas increase of the Ni-WO3. On other hand, as compared to pristine WO3, the synthesized Ni-WO3 exhibited significant enhancement in visible light absorption as well as effectively prevented electron-hole recombination. Thus, the Ni-WO3 exhibited novel photocatalytic performance even under visible light. Among synthesized NiWO3, the 3Ni-WO3, which mole ratio of Ni/WO3 was 3 %, presented the highest photocatalytic performance for tetracycline degradation.