High‐Efficiency Photocatalysis of Self‐Hydroxylated TiO₂ Nanocrystals for Water Splitting

Abstract

Herein, a facile and controllable strategy to synthesize self‐hydroxylated TiO2 nanocrystals with promoted photocatalytic activity in hydrogen evolution is demonstrated. Various colors (yellow, light yellow, blueish gray and gray) in appearance are induced by controlling the molar ratio of titanium source to oxidant during the hydrothermal treatment. Compared with commercial P25 TiO2 nanoparticles, the as‐obtained self‐hydroxylated TiO2 nanocrystals exhibit better photocatalytic performance in H2 evolution. Specifically, the maximum hydrogen evolution rate under solar light illumination (10.0 mmol/h/g) is 4.6 times superior to that of P25. The characterization results confirm the presence of abundant hydroxyls resulting from the hydrothermal treatment, which decreases the recombination rate of carriers and the energy barrier of hydrogen formation while facilitates light absorption for promoting photocatalytic performance.

Ag‐Doped TiO2Nanoparticles as an Effective Photocatalyst for Degradation of Indigo Carmine Dye under Visible Light

“…Among these three phases anatase phase, was found to be the most active phase for photocatalysis applications [10,11] . However, the wide bandgap of anatase TiO 2 (3.2 eV) restricts its photocatalytic activity in visible light which covers an extensive range of solar light [9,12] . Recently we have reported, anatase TiO 2 nanoparticlessynthesized by sol-gel technique for photodegradation of IC-dye and degradation efficiency was found to be 87.9 % [13] .…”

Template Based Synthesis of Plasmonic Ag‐modified TiO2/SnO2 Nanotubes with Enhanced Photostability for Efficient Visible‐Light Photocatalytic H2 Evolution and RhB Degradation

“…[1] Hydrogen (H 2 ) production through solar water splitting is one of the most attractive approach to transform sunlight to sustainable, renewable and green energy. Up to now, varieties of semiconductor materials such as WO 3 , [2] SnO 2 , [3] ZnO, [4] SrTiO 3 , [5] g-C 3 N 4 [6,7] and TiO 2 [8,9] with different morphologies have been widely used for the photodegradation of environmental pollutants. Among them, TiO 2 as a classical photocatalyst has been extensively researched for photocatalytic H 2 generation owning to its nontoxicity, high chemical stability, low cost, high abundance, high photocatalytic activity and suitable reduction potential for proton reduction.…”