This paper introduces a novel method for characterizing the oxygen vacancy associates in hydrogenationmodified TiO 2 by using a positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS). It was found that a huge number of small neutral Ti 3+ −oxygen vacancy associates, some larger size vacancy clusters, and a few voids of vacancy associates were introduced into hydrogenated TiO 2 . The defects blurred the atomic lattice high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) images and brought about the emergence of new Raman vibration. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurement indicated that the concentration of oxygen vacancies was 3% in the TiO 2 lattice. The photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy, photocurrent, and degradation of methylene blue indicated that the oxygen vacancy associates introduced by hydrogenation retarded the charge recombination and therefore improved the photocatalytic activity remarkably.

Recently, research on graphene based photodetectors has drawn substantial attention due to ultrafast and broadband photoresponse of graphene. However, they usually have low responsivity and low photoconductive gain induced by the gapless nature of graphene, which greatly limit their applications. The synergetic integration of graphene with other two-dimensional (2D) materials to form van der Waals heterostructure is a very promising approach to overcome these shortcomings. Here we report the growth of graphene-Bi2Te3 heterostructure where Bi2Te3 is a small bandgap material from topological insulator family with a similar hexagonal symmetry to graphene. Because of the effective photocarrier generation and transfer at the interface between graphene and Bi2Te3, the device photocurrent can be effectively enhanced without sacrificing the detecting spectral width. Our results show that the graphene-Bi2Te3 photodetector has much higher photoresponsivity (35 AW(-1) at a wavelength of 532 nm) and higher sensitivity (photoconductive gain up to 83), as compared to the pure monolayer graphene-based devices. More interestingly, the detection wavelength range of our device is further expanded to near-infrared (980 nm) and telecommunication band (1550 nm), which is not observed on the devices based on heterostructures of graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides.

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In this work, a novel photocatalyst, polypyrrole (PPy)-decorated Ag-TiO2 nanofibers (PPy-Ag-TiO2) with core-shell structure, was successfully synthesized using an electrospinning technique, followed by a surfactant-directed in situ chemical polymerization method. The results show that a PPy layer was formed on the surface of Ag-TiO2 nanofiber, which is beneficial for protecting Ag nanoparticles from being oxidized. Meanwhile, the PPy-Ag-TiO2 system exhibits remarkable light absorption in the visible region and high photocurrent. Among them, the 1%-PPy-Ag-TiO2 sample shows the highest photoactivity, which is far exceeds that of the single- and two-component systems. This result may be due to the synergistic effect of Ag, PPy, and TiO2 nanostructures in the ternary system.

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The photocatalytic activity of TiO(2) is enhanced mainly through heightening absorption of UV-vis light and improving the separation efficiency of photoinduced electrons and holes. The recent new theoretical research revealed that the TiO(2) codoped with Mo + C is considered to be an optimal doping system. On the basis of this theory, the Mo + C codoped TiO(2) powders were first experimentally synthesized by thermal oxidizing a mixture of TiC and MoO(3) powders in the air. The XRD patterns and the XPS survey spectrum showed that carbon (C) acted as a Ti-O-C band structure and molybdenum (Mo) existed as Mo(6+) in anatase TiO(2). The Mo+C codoped TiO(2) had a 32 nm red shift of the spectrum onset compared with pure anatase TiO(2), and its band gap was reduced from 3.20 to 2.97 eV. The photocurrent of the Mo + C codoped TiO(2) was about 4 times as high as that of pure anatase TiO(2), and its photocatalytic activity on decomposition of methylene blue was enhanced.

This paper introduced a process to prepare the carbon nanosphere (CNS)/NiCo2O4 core-shell sub-microspheres. That is: 1) CNSs were firstly prepared via a simple hydrothermal method; 2) a layer of NiCo2O4 precursor was coated on the CNS surface; 3) finally the composite was annealed at 350 °C for 2 hours in the air, and the CNS/NiCo2O4 core-shell sub-microspheres were obtained. This core-shell sub-microsphere was prepared with a simple, economical and environmental-friendly hydrothermal method, and was suitable for large-scale production, which expects a promising electrode candidate for high performance energy storage applications. Electrochemical experiments revealed that the composite exhibited remarkable electrochemical performances with high capacitance and desirable cycle life at high rates, such as: 1) the maximum specific capacitance was up to 1420 F/g at 1 A/g; 2) about 98.5% of the capacitance retained after 3000 charge-discharge cycles; 3) the capacitance retention was about 72% as the current density increase from 1 A/g to 10 A/g.

This study investigated adsorption and reactions of formaldehyde (HCHO) on TiO2 rutile (110) and anatase (001) surfaces by first-principles calculation. The structure, vibrational frequencies, and electronic properties of the interaction system are studied to investigate the adsorption mechanisms of HCHO on TiO2 surfaces. It is found that HCHO can chemically adsorb on all surfaces to form into a dioxymethylene structure with O of HCHO bonding to a coordinatively unsaturated surface Ti atom (Ti4C or Ti5C) and C bonding to a surface O2C. The anatase (001) surface is found to be more active in HCHO adsorption with lower adsorption energy and larger charge transfer. In addition, the (1 × 4) reconstructed anatase (001) surfaces are found to have higher adsorption ability and more stable surface properties than that on (1 × 1) unreconstructed ones. These findings indicate that the (001) surface holds the potential for the improvement of sensitivity to reductive HCHO gas, in which the (1 × 4) reconstructed surface may play an important role for further improving gas-sensing properties of TiO2-based sensors while keeping the stability of them.