Ionic liquid/TiO nanoparticles doped with non-expensive metals: new active catalyst for phenol photodegradation.

TiO nanoparticles were synthesized using 1--butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate (BMI·BF) ionic liquid and doped with non-expensive metals Cu and Fe by the sol-gel method. The new generated photocatalysts had their morphological, textural and structural characteristics analysed by scanning electron microscopy and dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller analysis (BET), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS). The results showed two phases by XRD analysis, anatase (majority) and rutile (minority).