Visible light responsive S-Doped TiO 2 nanoparticles: synthesis, characterization and photocatalytic degradation of pollutants

Heterogeneous catalyst (TiO 2 ) based reactions have appeared as an important destructive methodology for the removal of various organic and inorganic contaminants. The unique properties of TiO 2 such as stability against photo corrosion, sufficient bandgap, easy accessibility, and self-surface cleaning make it more promising photocatalyst. However, one of the major limitations of TiO 2 is broader bandgap that makes it active only in the UV region. Thus the current emphasis of research in photocatalysis field is to make titanium dioxide, a solar light receptive photocatalyst. The present study reports a greener synthetic approach for the synthesis of sulphur doped TiO 2 using titanium isopropoxide and thiophenol as an initial precursors. The synthesized photocatalysts were calcinated at different temperatures and depicted by using SEM–EDS, HR-TEM, PL, UV–Vis, FT-IR, XPS and XRD. The photocatalytic response was examined for various model compounds such as Rhodamine 6G (synthetic dye), Quinalphos (an organophosphate pesticide), and Diclofenac (a pharmaceutical waste).