Sulfur-doped titanium dioxide nanoparticles as effective photocatalytic for organic dyes elimination from water

Abstract

The pollution of water carried on by industrialization is one of the most hazardous environmental issues. The main objective of this work is to develop a highly efficient photocatalytic nanostructure to eliminate the dyes in water. Pristine and sulfur-doped titanium dioxide nanoparticles (TiO₂NPs and S-doped TiO₂NPs) were successfully synthesized as an effective photocatalytic for organic dye elimination from water. The structural analysis confirms that the doping of TiO₂NPs by sulfur anions causes an increase in particle size, crystallite size, and microstrain due to the replacement of oxygen ions with sulfur anions. The optical bandgap energy of TiO₂NPs decreases from 3.21 to 3.14 eV upon doping TiO₂NPs by sulfur anions. The average electrical conductivity values of pristine TiO₂NPs and S-doped TiO₂NPs are 3.96 × 10^‒5 S cm^‒1 and 4.75 × 10^‒4 S cm^‒1, respectively. Sulfur dopants enable photocatalysts to effectively capture and transmit photoinduced charges, hence effectively suppressing charge recombination. Therefore, the pristine and S-doped TiO₂NPs were used for photocatalytic degradation for selective dyes, i.e., MB, AO7, MO, and MR. The results demonstrate that S-doped TiO₂NPs demonstrate higher photocatalytic efficiencies than pristine TiO₂NPs. This research presents a novel approach to enhance the photocatalytic activity of TiO₂NPs by incorporating sulfur doping.

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