Preparation and visible light induced photocatalytic activity of C-NaTaO3 and C-NaTaO3–Cl-TiO2 composite

Abstract

A nice visible light responsive C-doped NaTaO₃ (C-NaTaO₃) particle has been successfully prepared by a facile solvothermal method using water–ethylene glycol mixed solutions as solvent. The results presented that the carbon could be easily incorporated in NaTaO₃ from ethylene glycol during a solvothermal reaction, finally leading to excellent visible light absorption. The as-synthesized C-NaTaO₃ showed excellent visible light induced photocatalytic activity superior to those of pure NaTaO₃ and commercial P25. In addition, in order to further improve the visible light driven photocatalytic performance of C-NaTaO₃, a new C-doped NaTaO₃–Cl-doped TiO₂ (C-NaTaO₃–Cl-TiO₂) core–shell type of composite was also fabricated. After coupling C-NaTaO₃ with Cl-TiO₂, the visible light induced NO_x gas destruction ability of C-NaTaO₃–Cl-TiO₂ composite was significantly enhanced as compared to those of sole C-NaTaO₃ and Cl-TiO₂, probably due to the hindrance of the recombination rate of photogenerated electron–hole pairs. The C-NaTaO₃ particle and C-NaTaO₃–Cl-TiO₂ composite prepared in this work would probably provide a new way to prepare high performance of visible light induced perovskite-type NaTaO₃ based photocatalysts.