The Effects of Manganese Dopant Content and Calcination Temperature on Properties of Titania-Zirconia Composite

The effects of dopant content and calcination temperature on Mn-doped TiO2-ZrO2 structure and properties were successfully investigated. Composite of Mndoped titania-zirconia was synthesized by sol-gel method. Titanium(IV) isopropoxide was used as the precursor of TiO2, while zirconia powder was used as another semiconductor. MnCl2 center dot 4H(2)O was used as the source of dopant in this study. Various amounts of manganese were incorporated into TiO2-ZrO2 and calcination was performed at temperatures of 500, 700 and 900 degrees C. Synthesized composites were characterized by Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), specular reflectance UV-Vis spectroscopy (SR UV-Vis), X-ray diffraction method (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy equipped with X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDX). The results showed that Mn-doped TiO2-ZrO2 with the lowest bandgap (2.78 eV) was achieved with 5% of Mn dopant and calcined at 900 degrees C, while Mn-doped TiO2-ZrO2 with the highest bandgap (3.12 eV) was achieved with 1% of Mn dopant content calcined at 500 degrees C.