Characterization and Photocatalytic Activity of Mg/TiO2 Nanoparticles Prepared by Sol–Gel Method

pure TiO2, Mg doped TiO2 nanoparticles were prepared by sol-gel method with titanium tetraisopropoxide as the Ti source. The physicochemical properties were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) techniques. The XRD patterns of the photocatalysts did not show the presence of separate metal diffraction peaks for Mg phases. This is mostly due to the high metal dispersion of the metals onto TiO2. The DRS results indicated that the band gap of doped photocatalyst was smaller than undoped TiO2 and there was a shift in the absorption band towards visible light. The photocatalytic activity of the all nanoparticles has been compared in the removal of Acid Yellow 23 (AY23) in solution under visible light irradiation. Doped TiO2 nanoparticles by Mg were shown to have highest activity as compared with the TiO2 nanoparticles. The optimum content of Magnesium for the preparation of doped Mg/TiO2 nanoparticles was 0.25 at mol%.