Photocatalytic activity of Lu3+/TiO2 prepared by ball milling method

Ball milling method was applied to prepare Lu~(3+)/TiO_2 photocatalysts. The catalysts were characterized with X-ray powder diffraction(XRD), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy(XPS), UV-visible diffuse reflectance spectra(UV-vis DRS), energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer(EDS), transmission electron microscopy(TEM) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller(BET) method. The photocatalytic activities were determined by the degradation of methylene blue(MB) equipped with a 300 W medium pressure mercury lamp. Results show that the first order reaction rate constants of Lu~(3+)/TiO_2 and pure TiO_2 are0.0565 and 0.0263 min-1, respectively, which both were evaluated under the condition of catalysts loading of 0.2 g/L,initial concentration of 25 mg/L for MB, mole ratio of Lu~(3+)/TiO_2 of 1.5% and milling time of 4 h. The average crystal sizes of 1.5 mol% Lu~(3+)/TiO_2 and pure TiO_2 are 18.7 and 19.3 nm, respectively.