Synthesis and photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nanotubes co-doped by erbium ions

Abstract In this paper we prepared titania nanotubes which was doped with erbium ions in ethylene glycol organic electrolyte through ions doping method. We found that the unit cell's parameters of the titania nanotubes increased when the titania nanotubes was doped with erbium ions. The Er3+ doped titania nanotubes has a strong absorption ability of infrared light, and the doping Er3+ has a characteristic peak when the wave number is 2341 cm−1. When the concentration of the doping Er3+ is 2.61 mmol/L, the titania nanotubes’ photo-degradation rate of the methylene blue can be reached to 95.2% which is larger than the titania nanotubes without doping with erbium ions. So, the titania nanotubes doped with Er3+ is extremely suitable for using as photocatalytic materials.