Structural, Optical, and Arsenic Removal Properties of Sol–Gel Synthesized Fe-Doped TiO2 Nanoparticles

Abstract

Pure and Fe-doped TiO2 nanoparticles were synthesized by the sol–gel method. The samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, BET, UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. The results show a dependence between the crystallite size and the amount of dopant, which decreases from 13.02 to 12.81 nm. The same behavior was observed in the optical properties, where the band gap decreased from 3.2 to 2.86 eV. The arsenic (V) adsorption was tested in aqueous solution containing 5 mg/L of arsenic and 0.5 g/L of adsorbent at pH 7 and in dark conditions. The results indicate that the TiO2-B sample shows a higher arsenic removal, reaching 88% arsenic removal from the water at pH 7. Thus, it is also shown that the best performance occurs at pH 5, where it reaches an arsenic removal of 94%. Ion competition studies show that arsenic removal capacity is slightly affected by chloride, carbonate, nitrate, and sulfate ions. According to the results, the synthesized samples are a promising material for treating arsenic-contaminated water.

Enhancing Photovoltaic Performance with BaTiO3/MWCNTs Composite Photoelectrodes in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

“…In pursuing low-cost and highefficiency photovoltaic materials, DSSCs have been fabricated using a range of synthesis strategies for the metal oxide photoanode component. The reported approaches include precipitation [28], hydrothermal [29], and sol-gel synthesis [30] to produce nanostructured morphologies. Furthermore, various techniques have aimed to optically and electronically optimize DSSC photoanodes, whether through elemental doping [31,32], the addition of quantum dots [33,34], or carbon nanotubes [35][36][37], the addition of co-catalysts, or other routes [38].…”

ZnO-CuO Nanocomposite as an Efficient Adsorbent for As(III) Removal from Water

“…It is highly efficient, cost-effective, versatile, and safe for arsenic removal from water [29]. For this purpose, different materials that could remove arsenic from water have been studied, such as TiO 2 [30] and their composites [31,32], iron-based materials [33,34], nickel-based materials [35], perovskite-type materials, such as CaTiO 3 [36], graphene-based materials [37], carbon nanotubes [38], and other materials [39]. In terms of effectiveness and cost, the adsorption method is the most efficient, but its operation is still expensive.…”