Porous nickel doped titanium dioxide nanoparticles with improved visible light photocatalytic activity

A green hydrothermal synthesis route to prepare a porous nickel doped titanium dioxide (Ni–TiO2) nanostructured photocatalyst has been developed in this research. The results show that Ni doping can greatly increase the visible light photocatalytic performance of TiO2 through the introduction of impurity bands in the band gap of TiO2. After 5 cycles of reuse, Ni–TiO2 nanoparticles still show stable photocatalytic activity for MB degradation. The Ni–TiO2 nanoparticles developed in the present study are expected to have great potential applications in wastewater treatment due to the advantages of strong visible light photocatalytic performance, a simple synthetic process and high cycle utilization performance.