Synthesis and Characterization of Some Nanomaterials for Environmental Applications

Abstract

Abstract In the current study, we have fabricated undoped and doped TiO2 with different dopants such as reduced graphene oxide (rGO) and boron nitride (BN) with different mass ratios (0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 wt. % of Ti) for TiO2/rGO nanofibers and (0, 2, 5, 10, and 20 wt. % of Ti) for TiO2/BN nanofibers. The prepared nanofibers have been synthesized in order to be used as photocatalysts for organic pollutants' degradation. Then, the structural, morphological, and optical properties of the prepared undoped and doped nanofibers have been studied by X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area, and UV-Vis spectrophotometry. The photocatalytic efficiencies of the prepared nanofibers of the prepared nanofibers have been investigated using tartrazine dye as a paradigm for organic pollutants and detecting their degradation under UV and visible light. The obtained results confirmed the successful doping between TiO2 and rGO or BN. The efficiencies of the prepared nanofibers were enhanced from 10% for bare TiO2 to 92% and 97% for TiO2/rGO and TiO2/BN, respectively.