The textile dye industry is one of the most important industries in the world, having a wide variety of advantages, including enhancing aesthetic and functional value, developing eco-friendly alternatives through natural dyes, offering health and therapeutic benefits, promoting innovation and sustainability, and redefining economic and technological importance. However, synthetic textile dyes have toxic pollutants that contribute remarkably to water pollution and cause environmental damage. Different methods, including physical, chemical, and biological, have been created to remove textile dye from water. However, each one has disadvantages, including incomplete degradation, slow rate, and secondary substances, all requiring expensive cleaning procedures. In comparison, the use of photocatalysts shows promising cost and efficiency advantages, such as being inexpensive, able to remove textile dye completely, not producing harmful byproducts, and showing greater developmental efficiency. Given its seamless application in the lab, more essential parameter analysis is needed to gauge its productivity at an industrial scale.

Our research focuses on addressing these limitations through designing novel composite photocatalysts based on nanocrystals. Specifically, anatase phase nanocrystal, which is doped with different elements from different groups to enhance the visible light under low intensity conditions. Procedures will include defect engineering, multi-element doping, and natural polymer incorporation to enhance light absorption, charge separation, and overall photocatalytic efficiency. The characterization was done by multiple techniques, such as XRD, XPS, photoluminescence, cyclic voltammetry, electron paramagnetic resonance, etc., to understand their structural and electronic properties.

The result showed that the nanocrystals show superior photocatalytic performance towards different types of textile dyes under low intensity LED irradiation (around 9.5 mW/cm²). This enhanced activity is related to different parameters, including the synergistic effect of lattice strain, bandgap narrowing, and improved charge carrier recombination.

As a result, it shows a scalable and energy-efficient strategy for developing advanced photocatalysts capable of operating under realistic light conditions, which promote improved charge separation and enhance visible light absorption due to the defect-mediated electronic structure, which inhibits harmful dyes from entering the water supply.