Nonhydrolytic sol-gel in-situ synthesis of novel recoverable amorphous Fe2TiO5/C hollow spheres as visible-light driven photocatalysts

A novel recoverable visible-light photocatalyst, amorphous Fe2TiO5/C composite, was prepared via nonhydrolytic sol-gel method with carbon-containing precursors as in-situ carbon sources. It is demonstrated that the precursors, iron ethoxide and butyl titanate, react to form Fe-O-Ti bonds in gel through a ether elimination reaction and amorphous Fe2TiO5 at 300 degrees C, which finally crystallizes at 600 degrees C. The residual organic groups form uniformdoped C. Interestingly, the photocatalytic activity of amorphous Fe2TiO5/C is distinctly superior to those of its crystalline counterparts without C and P25 (43-fold increase and 12-fold increase, respectively), which is mainly attributed to the incorporation of C (8.17 wt%) and amorphous Fe2TiO5 with a hollow spherical structure and a high BET surface area of 195.5 m(2)/g. Importantly, the photocatalyst can be recovered with a recovery rate of 100% simply by an external magnetic field, making it have promising applications in the wastewater treatment field. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.