Synergistic effect of manganese and nitrogen codoping on photocatalytic properties of titania nanoparticles

Titanium dioxide is an n-type semiconductor widely used in applications like catalysts, optoelectonic materials, ceramics, H-2 generation, self-cleaning, water purification and solar cells. Sol-gel method has been chosen for nanoparticle synthesis because of its easy stoichiometry control, cost effectiveness and low temperature synthesis. In this study, titanium dioxide nanoparticles doped with different amounts of manganese (Mn) and nitrogen (N) were synthesized with sol-gel method. Crystal structure of undoped, Mn-doped, and Mn-N-codoped nanoparticles were determined with X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis was performed to identify the functional groups of nanoparticles. Photocatalytic analysis was caaried out by methylene blue degredation under UV light for 1 h. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysiswas conducted to identify the chemical state and composition of the nanoparticles. Compared to the undoped TiO2, which had 79.37% efficiency, Mn-doped and Mn-N-codoped TiO2 nanoparticles have shown greater photocatalytic efficiency with 86.25 and 99.11% efficiencies, respectively. The results confirm that doping of manganese and nitrogen has affirmative effect on phptocatalytic properties of synthesized nanoparticles.