FTIR Investigation of Sonochemically N-Doped TiO2 Nano Powder

In pursuit of sonochemical nonmetal doping of TiO2, ultrasound was applied to a mixture of TiO2 nano powder and sodium amide as a nitrogen source in an ethanol solution. The as-prepared sample was characterized by various methods, and the visible-light photocatalytic activity was demonstrated. Based on the generation of ammonia from sodium amide in an ethanol solution, simple modeling of the sonochemical process was given, and possible sonochemical products were predicted according to this simplified model. In search of the traces of the sonochemical products, we examined the Infrared spectra of the N-doped samples. The actual IR spectra turned out to be complex, and considerable efforts were put into identifying the spectral features. Upon identification and assignment of IR spectral features to appropriate chemical species, we were able to compare them with those predicted by our simple model. From this comparison we found the validity of our simplified model, and furthermore the direction for refinements to properly account for the sonochemical N-doping of TiO2 with sodium amide.