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Nano Research 2015, 8(12): 4061-4071 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-015-0917-5
Research Article | Issue | Published: 18 November 2015

Effect of defects on photocatalytic activity of rutile TiO2 nanorods

Show Author's Information Zhao Zhao1,2,3,4,  Xiaoyan Zhang1,3,  Guoqiang Zhang1,3,  Zhenyu Liu1,  Dan Qu1,3,  Xiang Miao1,3,  Pingyun Feng4( ),  Zaicheng Sun1,2( )
State Key Laboratory of Luminescence and ApplicationsChangchun Institute of OpticsFine Mechanics and PhysicsCAS.3888 East Nanhu RoadChangchun130033China
Beijing Key Laboratory for Green Catalysis and SeparationDepartment of Chemistry and Chemical EngineeringBeijing University of TechnologyBeijing100124China
University of Chinese Academy of SciencesNo.19A Yuquan RoadBeijing100049China
Department of ChemistryUniversity of CaliforniaRiversideCA92521USA
Keywords:
defects, charge separation, TiO2, photocatalytic H2 generation, oxygen vacancies
Cite this article:
Zhao Z, Zhang X, Zhang G, et al. Effect of defects on photocatalytic activity of rutile TiO2 nanorods. Nano Research, 2015, 8(12): 4061-4071. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-015-0917-5
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

To further understand the effect of structural defects on the electrochemical and photocatalytic properties of TiO2, two synthetic approaches based on hydrothermal synthesis and post-synthetic chemical reduction to achieve oxygen defectimplantation were developed herein. These approaches led to the formation of TiO2 nanorods with uniformly distributed defects in either the bulk or on the surface, or the combination of both, in the formed TiO2 nanorods (NRs). Both approaches utilize unique TiN nanoparticles as the reaction precursor. Electron microscopy and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analyses indicate that all the studied samples exhibit similar morphology and similar specific surface areas. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) data confirm the existence of oxygen defects (VO). The photocatalytic properties of TiO2 with different types of implanted VO were evaluated based on photocatalytic H2 production. By optimizing the concentration of VO among the TiO2 NRs subjected to different treatments, significantly higher photocatalytic activities than that of the stoichiometric TiO2 NRs was achieved. The incident photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE) data indicate that the enhanced photocatalytic activity arises mainly from defect-assisted charge separation, which implies that photo-generated electrons or holes can be captured by VO and suppress the charge recombination process. The results show that the defective TiO2 obtained by combining the two approaches exhibits the greatest photocatalytic activity enhancement among all the samples.


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About this article

Effect of defects on photocatalytic activity of rutile TiO2 nanorods

Show Author's information Zhao Zhao1,2,3,4, Xiaoyan Zhang1,3, Guoqiang Zhang1,3, Zhenyu Liu1, Dan Qu1,3, Xiang Miao1,3, Pingyun Feng4( ), Zaicheng Sun1,2( )
State Key Laboratory of Luminescence and ApplicationsChangchun Institute of OpticsFine Mechanics and PhysicsCAS.3888 East Nanhu RoadChangchun130033China
Beijing Key Laboratory for Green Catalysis and SeparationDepartment of Chemistry and Chemical EngineeringBeijing University of TechnologyBeijing100124China
University of Chinese Academy of SciencesNo.19A Yuquan RoadBeijing100049China
Department of ChemistryUniversity of CaliforniaRiversideCA92521USA

Abstract

To further understand the effect of structural defects on the electrochemical and photocatalytic properties of TiO2, two synthetic approaches based on hydrothermal synthesis and post-synthetic chemical reduction to achieve oxygen defectimplantation were developed herein. These approaches led to the formation of TiO2 nanorods with uniformly distributed defects in either the bulk or on the surface, or the combination of both, in the formed TiO2 nanorods (NRs). Both approaches utilize unique TiN nanoparticles as the reaction precursor. Electron microscopy and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analyses indicate that all the studied samples exhibit similar morphology and similar specific surface areas. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) data confirm the existence of oxygen defects (VO). The photocatalytic properties of TiO2 with different types of implanted VO were evaluated based on photocatalytic H2 production. By optimizing the concentration of VO among the TiO2 NRs subjected to different treatments, significantly higher photocatalytic activities than that of the stoichiometric TiO2 NRs was achieved. The incident photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE) data indicate that the enhanced photocatalytic activity arises mainly from defect-assisted charge separation, which implies that photo-generated electrons or holes can be captured by VO and suppress the charge recombination process. The results show that the defective TiO2 obtained by combining the two approaches exhibits the greatest photocatalytic activity enhancement among all the samples.

Keywords: defects, charge separation, TiO2, photocatalytic H2 generation, oxygen vacancies

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 21 August 2015
Revised: 27 September 2015
Accepted: 29 September 2015
Published: 18 November 2015
Issue date: December 2015

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21301166, 21201159, 61361166004, and 61176016); Science and Technology Department of Jilin Province (No. 20130522127JH) are gratefully acknowledged. Z. C. S. thanks the support of the "Hundred Talent program" of CAS and open research fund program of State Key Laboratory of Luminescence and Applications (Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics, CAS). Z. Z. thanks for the support of the fellowship from China Scholarship Council. Financial support of the project from the National Science Foundation (No. CHE-1213795, P. Y. F.) is also greatly appreciated.

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