Different titanium oxide powders （ATiO2, BTiO2） were pretreated in ammonia （NH3） gas at high temperatures. After the pretreatment, the color of the titanium oxide powders changed from white to yellow or gray depending on the pretreatment temperatures. Morphologies and structures of the treated titanium oxide powders were characterized by physical chemical methods. XRD measurements showed that the crystalline structures were mainly mixture of anatase and rutile for the ATiO2 but only anatase for the BTiO2, Stronger absorption of visible light was observed for both types of samples using UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectra. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy demonstrated that doped nitrogen existed on the surface TiO2 after ammonia gas pretreatment. The photocatalytic activities of the treated titanium oxide samples were evaluated via the photodegradation of methyl orange and phenol in aqueous suspensions. No obvious improvement in photocatalytic activity was achieved by ammonia pretreatment although it could enhance the absorption of light. Effects of treatment temperatures on photoactivities were complete different for ATiO2 and BTiO2 （i.e. higher treated temperatures yielded higher activities for BTiO2 but lower for ATiO2）. All samples yielded lower activity levels after ammonia pretreatment without regard to pretreatment temperature or the reaction light resource.
A visible-light-active photocatalyst was prepared by calcination of the hydrolysis product of tetrabutyl titanate with ammonia as precipitant. The photocatalyst was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV-Vis diffuse reflection spectra (DRS), thermal gravimetric-differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscope (SEM). The color of the photocatalyst was yellow and could absorb light wavelength under 550 nm as measured by DRS. The catalyst calcined at higher temperature will give lower absorbance for visible light. Structures of the sample were characterized mainly to be anatase by XRD except for the sample calcined at 700 ℃ which gave mixtures of anatase and rutile. TG-DTA results showed that temperature for anatase formation was 415 ℃. XPS results showed that doped-nitrogen was presented in the sample, they are important to show visible-light absorbency. The photocatalytic activities were evaluated using methyl orange and phenol as model pollutants, the results showed that over 90% of phenol could be degraded under visible light using N/TiO2 as the catalyst after 4 hours reaction. Almost the same activity was found for the TiO2 photocatalyst calcined at different temperature under sunlight but activities were different when the treatment was under UV light.
