One-Pot Approach for the Synthesis of Water-Soluble Anatase TiO₂ Nanoparticle Cluster with Efficient Visible Light Photocatalytic Activity

Abstract

Water contamination is one of the most serious problems today. Titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) has received increasing attention on water decontamination. It will be a great contribution to fabricate water-soluble anatase TiO 2 nanoparticles with efficient visible light photocatalytic activity for water decontamination. Herein, we present a simple one-pot approach to synthesize a water-soluble anatase TiO 2 nanoparticle cluster with efficient visible light photocatalytic activity. PEG400 was used as a stabilizer to improve the aqueous dissolubility, while HCl was used to control the anatase phase of TiO 2 . In particular, titanium tetrachloride (TiCl 4 ) and titanium butoxide were cooperatively served as precursors of titanium. The results indicated that the crystals of TiO 2 were stacked together to form big crystal clusters cooperatively using TiCl 4 and titanium butoxide as precursors of titanium. The TiO 2 crystal cluster presented good aqueous dissolubility, and the anatase phase was successfully controlled. It is interesting that the UV− vis absorbance of aqueous solution of the TiO 2 crystal cluster was highly enhanced and expanded into the visible region. The TiO 2 crystal cluster possessed efficient photocatalytic activities both under UV and visible light irradiation. The water-soluble TiO 2 clusters have application prospect in water decontamination.

Construction of Spindle-Shaped Ti3+ Self-Doped TiO2 Photocatalysts Using Triethanolamine-Aqueous as the Medium and Its Photoelectrochemical Properties

“…Bulk and surface studies cannot elucidate the shape dependence effect, which is regarded as the origin of the higher performance of smaller particles. Serial organic surfactants, such as PVP [38], PEG [39], CTAB [40], thiophenol [41], and TEA [42] have been employed to tune the size and morphology and to prevent agglomeration. The introduction of surfactant could also stabilize the active adsorption sites that are conducive to the formation of smaller TiO 2 -based photocatalysts [43,44].…”