Porous nickel doped titanium dioxide nanoparticles with improved visible light photocatalytic activity

A green hydrothermal synthesis route to prepare a porous nickel doped titanium dioxide (Ni-TiO₂) nanostructured photocatalyst has been developed in this research. The results show that Ni doping can greatly increase the visible light photocatalytic performance of TiO₂ through the introduction of impurity bands in the band gap of TiO₂. After 5 cycles of reuse, Ni-TiO₂ nanoparticles still show stable photocatalytic activity for MB degradation. The Ni-TiO₂ nanoparticles developed in the present study are expected to have great potential applications in wastewater treatment due to the advantages of strong visible light photocatalytic performance, a simple synthetic process and high cycle utilization performance.