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ABSTRACT
Visible light photocatalysis by semiconductor nanomaterials is one of the promising methods due to its sustainable nature and cost effectiveness. Co-doping in TiO2 by metal as well as non-metal ion is an effective way to make it an efficient visible light photocatalyst. In this work, highly competent nanostructured Ta/N-TiO2 has been standardised by following sequential trials on series of tantalum and nitrogen co-doped TiO2 and characterised by PXRD, UV-Vis-DRS, SEM-EDAX, TEM and XPS. Diffuse reflectance-UV-Vis spectroscopy (UV-Vis-DRS) of the particles revealed that optical band gaps were decreasing only up to 20 mol% of the Ta content. It was observed, the doping percentage of Ta was found to significantly control the extent of N incorporation into the particles. Sunlight stimulated photocatalytic dye degradation experiments were performed over aqueous methylene blue (MB) and the Ta/N co-doped TiO2 particles containing 20 mol% of Ta displayed the paramount photocatalytic activity. Photocatalytic disinfection also performed over E. coli, S. aureus and Bacillus employing 20 mol% of Ta/N-TiO2. Significant amount of inhibition found in E. coli and S. aureus and possible killing mechanism are discussed in 'Result and discussion' section. The co-doped TiO2 has dual advantage to act both as a visible light active photocatalyst and antibacterial agent.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Center for Interdisciplinary Research facility of Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India. KG acknowledges the Ministry of Human Resource and Development India (MHRD), Government of India for providing a research fellowship. The authors are also grateful to TQIP for financial support.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.