Nanocrystalline TiO(2) Composite Films for the Photodegradation of Formaldehyde and Oxytetracycline under Visible Light Irradiation

In order to effectively photodegradate organic pollutants, ZnO composite and Co-B codoped TiO(2) films were successfully deposited on glass substrates via a modified sol-gel method and a controllable dip-coating technique. Combining with UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and photoluminescence spectra (PL) analyses, the multi-modification could not only extend the optical response of TiO(2) to visible light region but also decrease the recombination rate of electron-hole pairs. XRD results revealed that the multi-modified TiO(2) film had an anatase-brookite biphase heterostructure. FE-SEM results indicated that the multi-modified TiO(2) film without cracks was composed of smaller round-like nanoparticles compared to pure TiO(2). BET surface area results showed that the specific surface area of pure TiO(2) and the multi-modified TiO(2) sample was 47.8 and 115.8 m(2)/g, respectively. By degradation of formaldehyde and oxytetracycline, experimental results showed that the multi-modified TiO(2) film had excellent photodegradation performance under visible light irradiation.