Preparation and characterisation of TiO_{2 thermally modified with cyclohexane vapours

In this study a simple method of preparation of UV-vis light-active TiO2 photocatalysts is presented. The new photocatalysts were obtained by thermal modification of the anatase TiO2 powder (Police, Poland) with cyclohexane. The obtained materials were investigated by means of UV-vis/DR, FTIR/DRS, XRD. BET specific surface area and carbon content was also measured. Furthermore, photocatalytic activity of the new photocatalysts were investigated under UV-vis irradiation with high UV light intensity during of phenol degradation. TiO2/C photocatalysts show higher photocatalytic activity in comparison with TiO2-starting and commercial KRONOClean 7000, regardless of calcination temperature. It was found that the smaller amount of carbon in TiO2/C photocatalyst sample the better photocatalytic activity of tested nanomaterials.