Preparation, Characteristics, and Photocatalytic Tests of Fe-Doped TiO₂ Films Prepared by a Sol-Gel Drain Coating via Homemade Devices

Abstract

Anatase Fe-doped TiO₂ films, with the rang of iron to titanium (Fe(NO₃)₃ · 9H₂O:Ti(OC₄H₉)₄)) atomic ratios (R _Fe/Ti ) from nominal 0 to 20%, are prepared by a sol-gel drain coating via homemade devices, and the hydrolysis reaction to derive sol is suppressed by adding an new agglomerating agent acetylacetic ether (EAcAc) to the system. The films are characterized by using thermogravimetry and differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA), x-ray diffraction (XRD), ultraviolet (UV)–visible absorbance spectra (UV–vis), and scanning electron microscope (SEM), together with energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX). Furthermore, the photocatalytic activities are measured by photodegrading rhodamine B (RhB) in a cylindrical Pyrex reactor, the experimental details demonstrate that the Fe-doped TiO₂ films (R _Fe/Ti  = 3.0%) show the most excellent photocatalytic perfomances, which is good accordance with UV-vis spectra.

Keywords:

• Drain coating
• EAcAc
• Fe-doped TiO₂ film
• photodegradation
• RhB

This research was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 20776103).