Preparation of Ru-Doped TiO2 Nanotubes Electrode and Its Application in Methyl Orange Photoelectrocatalytic Degradation

Ru-doped TiO₂ nanotubes electrode was prepared on a titanium plate by direct anodic oxidation and immersing method in sequence. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed that the Ru-doped TiO₂ nanotubes were well aligned and organized into high density uniform arrays with diameter ranging from 60 to 90 nm. Ru ions were mainly located on the surface of TiO₂ nanotubes in form of RuO₂ clusters. The degradation rate of methyl orange (MO) using Ru-doped TiO₂ nanotubes electrode was found to be 1.33 times as high as that using TiO₂ nanotubes electrode. The optimum degradation of MO was obtained under the following conditions: 0.01mol/L RuCl₃ and bias potential of 0.2V. The MO degradation efficiencies of the 8 repeated experiments by Ru-doped TiO₂ nanotubes electrode were rather stable with the deviation within 4.0%.