Photocatalysis is a novel and eco-friendly method for eliminating contaminants from wastewater through the use of light-activated catalysts. The impact of chromium doping on the optical, structural, and photocatalytic characteristics of titanium dioxide was examined by synthesizing chromium-doped titanium dioxide nanoparticles by the single-step sol-gel technique. XRD examination showed the production of mixed phases of anatase and rutile in TiO2, with no extra peaks indicating successful Cr doping in the TiO2 lattice. Furthermore, Cr doping led to a significant decrease in the average crystallite size of the TiO2 crystal, from 64.34 to 13.61 nm. FTIR analysis was employed to ascertain the chemical connections (Ti-O) and (O-H) present in the products. The energy band gap obtained from UV-Vis absorbance data, as calculated by the Tauc plot, exhibits a gradual decrease from 3.22 eV to 2.84 eV with chromium doping. The photocatalytic efficacy of Cr-doped TiO2 nanoparticles was assessed by degrading methylene blue dye under direct visible sunlight conditions. The results indicated that Cr-doped TiO2 (39.77%) exhibited markedly superior photocatalytic performance compared to undoped TiO2 (6.40%) for 120 minutes. The findings elucidate the potential use of Cr-doped TiO2 nanoparticles in environmental cleanup and photocatalysis.
Iqbal et al. (Thu,) studied this question.