Evaluation of bimetal doped TiO2 in dye fragmentation and its comparison to mono-metal doped and bare catalysts

There are instances that bimetal doped semiconductor materials impart superior photocatalytic activity than bare and mono-metal doping. In this study, visible light responsive mono- (Cu/TiO2 and Ni/TiO2) and bi-metal doped (Cu-Ni/TiO2) TiO2 photocatalysts with wide band gap energy were synthesized via co-precipitation method with an equal mass ratio of Cu and Ni. The catalyst characterization was performed using Diffuse Reflectance UV-visible (DR-UV-vis) spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray Diffraction (XRD), zeta-potential and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) analyzes. The charge balancing effect of Cu and Ni caused a notable reduction in the optical band gap of TiO2 to 2.91 eV with Cu-Ni/TiO2. The synthesis method increased the anatase phase significantly along with the crystallite size. Cu-Ni/TiO2 displayed a lesser destabilization tendency, and the absolute value of zeta-potentials increased much at pH > pH(zpc) resulted from the higher oxygen vacancies. The activity of Ni/TiO2, Cu/TiO2, and Cu-Ni/TiO2 was tested for the degradation dynamics and kinetics of Eriochrome Cyanine Red (ECR), an anionic dye. Cu doping exhibited a better dye decomposition because of the low recombination rate of electron/hole pair as a full 3d sub-level of Cu is energetically more favorable than a full 4s sub-level of Ni. The mechanism of dye decomposition releasing inorganic ions is also proposed and validated from the mass spectra. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.