Preparation of Fe(3+) Doped High-ordered TiO(2) Nanotubes Arrays with Visible Photocatalytic Activities

In this paper, the Fe(3+) doped rutile phase TiO(2) nanotubes arrays (NTAs) were prepared in a low temperature water-assistant crystallization method. It is noteworthy that the Fe(3+) doping hardly hinders either the crystallization of rutile TiO(2) NTAs or the highly-ordered nanotubular morphologies. Moreover, Fe(3+) did not form other compound impurities, which indicated that Fe(3+) substitute Ti(4+) into the lattice of TiO(2). With the introduction of Fe(3+), the light absorption range of TiO(2) NTAs extends from the ultraviolet band to the visible light range. Photocatalytic testing results indicate that Fe(3+) doped TiO(2) NTAs can effectively improve the degradation rate of methyl orange aqueous solution in visible light, and the TiO(2) NTAs with 0.2 mol/L Fe(3+) doping exhibits the highest photocatalytic degradation efficiency.