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Abstract
Titanium dioxide (TiO2) was doped with a nonmetalic element, boron (B), and the boron doped TiO2 (B-TiO2) was combined with polyaniline (Pani) through an in-situ polymerization technique. The photocatalytic activity of the prepared samples was monitored by the degradation of methylene blue under UV light irradiation. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy were used to reveal the effect of boron doping on the crystalline and chemical structure of the photocatalyst, respectively. The morphological and elemental compositional characteristics of the samples were evaluated using field emission scaning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) and energy dispersive x-ray analysis. The optical band gap energy of the prepared samples was obtained by UV-Visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy. B-TiO2 exhibited enhanced photocatalytic performance compared to the undoped photocatalyst. Furthermore, compared with TiO2 and B-TiO2, Pani/B-TiO2 displayed superior photocatalytic activity. The composite achieved almost 26% methylene blue degradation within 150 minutes. Although the boron doping enhanced the crystallinity of TiO2 slightly, it did not affect the morphology. FTIR confirmed the presence of tri-coordinated interstitial boron in the Ti–O–B bonds. The UV-Vis spectra displayed a red shift with the incorporation of the boron atoms. The incorporation of the boron atoms in the TiO2 crystal structure are suggested to promote the separation of the photoinduced electron-hole pairs, a possible reason for the enhanced photocatalytic activity. B-TiO2 and its composite with polyaniline could be considered as a promising photocatalyst to remove organic dyes from the wastewater.