Synthesis of iron-doped TiO2 nanoparticles by ball-milling process: the influence of process parameters on the structural,optical, magnetic,and photocatalytic properties

Titanium dioxide (TiO₂) absorbs only a small fraction of incoming sunlight in the visible region thus limiting its photocatalytic efficiency and concomitant photocatalytic ability. The large-scale application of TiO₂ nanoparticles has been limited due to the need of using an ultraviolet excitation source to achieve high photocatalytic activity. The inclusion of foreign chemical elements in the TiO₂ lattice can tune its band gap resulting in an absorption edge red-shifted to lower energies enhancing the photocatalytic performance in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum. In this research work, TiO₂ nanoparticles were doped with iron powder in a planetary ball-milling system using stainless steel balls. The correlation between milling rotation speeds with structural and morphologic characteristics, optical and magnetic properties, and photocatalytic abilities of bare and Fe-doped TiO₂ powders was studied and discussed.