Visible light photocatalytic degradation of 4-chlorophenol using vanadium and nitrogen co-doped TiO2

Vanadium and Nitrogen were codoped in TiO2 photocatalyst by Sol-gel method to utilize visible light more efficiently for photocatalytic reactions. A noticeable shift of absorption edge to visible light region was obtained for the singly-doped namely V-TiO2, N-TiO2 and codoped V-N-TiO2 samples in comparison with undoped TiO2, with smallest band gap obtained with codoped-TiO2. The photocatalytic activities for all TiO2 photocatalysts were tested by 4-chlorophenol (organic pollutant) degradation under visible light irradiation. It was found that codoped TiO2 exhibits the best photocatalytic activity, which could be attributed to the synergistic effect produced by V and N dopants.