Sol-gel preparation of porous In-TiO2 photocatalyst using cetyltrimethylammonium bromide as template

Wenjie Zhang, Xiaobei Pei and

Abstract

A sol-gel method was used to prepare indium doped TiO2 porous photocatalyst using cetyltrimethylammonium bromide as the template. The materials were studied by XRD, SEM, and N2 adsorption-desorption methods. Photocatalytic activity of the materials was evaluated using methyl orange as the pollutant. Photocatalytic degradation efficiency is 91.8% on the sample In-TiO2(0.12) after 60 min of irradiation. The degradation efficiency is nearly 35% larger than the sample without CTAB. The sample calcinated at 500 ℃ has both the maximum adsorption capacity and photocatalytic activity. The diffraction peaks of In-TiO2 and In-TiO2(0.12) are in accordance to the diffraction peaks of anatase phase TiO2. The addition of CTAB leads to the increment of lattice parameters and cell volume. N2 adsorption amount on In-TiO2(0.12) is obviously larger than that on In-TiO2. The average pore sizes of In-TiO2 and In-TiO2(0.12) are 23.3 nm and 16.3 nm, and the total pore volumes are 0.072 cm3/g and 0.22 cm3/g, respectively.