Innovative W-doped titanium dioxide anchored on clay for photocatalytic removal of atrazine.

Innovative W-TiO 2 /clay photocatalysts were successfully synthesized by a facile sol-gel method using different W dopant concentrations (0.5, 2 and 5 M%). The obtained photocatalysts were characterized by XRD, TEM, XPS, textural analysis and DRS-UV–vis spectroscopy. The W-TiO 2 /clay photocatalysts have TiO 2 as anatase phase, where W dopant caused the increase of its crystal size and the distortion of its lattice, due to W substitution of Ti ions. W dopant also modified the electronic properties of anatase, resulting in moderately narrower band gap of photocatalysts. Photocatalytic activity measurements showed that W-TiO 2 /clay catalyst with 5% of W possed the best photocatalytic performance for the removal of atrazine under solar light compared to un-doped TiO 2 /clay, which was explained by the presence of W ions in the TiO 2 structure. The relevance of W doping on the photocatalytic performance of these photocatalysts was also corroborated studying the activity under visible light. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]