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Nano Research 2017, 10(11): 3920-3928 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1606-3
Research Article | Issue | Published: 08 July 2017

Multi-shelled TiO2/Fe2TiO5 heterostructured hollow microspheres for enhanced solar water oxidation

Show Author's Information Muhammad Waqas1,3,  Yanze Wei1,2,  Dan Mao1( ),  Jian Qi1,  Yu Yang1,  Bao Wang1( ),  Dan Wang1( )
State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience Institute of Process Engineering Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1 North 2nd Street, Zhongguancun, Haidian District Beijing 100190 China
Department of Physical Chemistry School of Metallurgical and Ecological Engineering University of Science & Technology Beijing, No. 30, Xueyuan Road, Haidian District Beijing 100083 China
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 19A Yuquanlu Beijing 100049 China
Keywords:
heterostructure, oxidation, titanium oxide, multi-shelled hollow microsphere, pseudo-brookite, photocatalytic water
Cite this article:
Waqas M, Wei Y, Mao D, et al. Multi-shelled TiO2/Fe2TiO5 heterostructured hollow microspheres for enhanced solar water oxidation. Nano Research, 2017, 10(11): 3920-3928. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-017-1606-3
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

There remains a pressing challenge in the fabrication of superior photocatalysts for light-driven water oxidation. Here, we designed and fabricated heterostructured TiO2/Fe2TiO5 hollow microspheres with single-, double-, closed-double-, triple-, and core-shell structures and different Fe/Ti molar ratios using a facile sequential templating approach. The closed-double-shelled TiO2/Fe2TiO5 hollow microspheres with 35% Fe exhibited the highest oxygen evolution reaction rate up to 375 μmol·g-1·h-1 and good stability for 5 h. The high performance can be attributed to the closed-double shell, which had more reactive sites and greater light-harvesting ability, self-supported thin shells with short charge-transfer paths, and a favorable staggered band alignment between the TiO2 and Fe2TiO5.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

Multi-shelled TiO2/Fe2TiO5 heterostructured hollow microspheres for enhanced solar water oxidation

Show Author's information Muhammad Waqas1,3, Yanze Wei1,2, Dan Mao1( ), Jian Qi1, Yu Yang1, Bao Wang1( ), Dan Wang1( )
State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience Institute of Process Engineering Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1 North 2nd Street, Zhongguancun, Haidian District Beijing 100190 China
Department of Physical Chemistry School of Metallurgical and Ecological Engineering University of Science & Technology Beijing, No. 30, Xueyuan Road, Haidian District Beijing 100083 China
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Chinese Academy of Sciences, No. 19A Yuquanlu Beijing 100049 China

Abstract

There remains a pressing challenge in the fabrication of superior photocatalysts for light-driven water oxidation. Here, we designed and fabricated heterostructured TiO2/Fe2TiO5 hollow microspheres with single-, double-, closed-double-, triple-, and core-shell structures and different Fe/Ti molar ratios using a facile sequential templating approach. The closed-double-shelled TiO2/Fe2TiO5 hollow microspheres with 35% Fe exhibited the highest oxygen evolution reaction rate up to 375 μmol·g-1·h-1 and good stability for 5 h. The high performance can be attributed to the closed-double shell, which had more reactive sites and greater light-harvesting ability, self-supported thin shells with short charge-transfer paths, and a favorable staggered band alignment between the TiO2 and Fe2TiO5.

Keywords: heterostructure, oxidation, titanium oxide, multi-shelled hollow microsphere, pseudo-brookite, photocatalytic water

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 15 March 2017
Revised: 26 March 2017
Accepted: 27 March 2017
Published: 08 July 2017
Issue date: November 2017

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This project was kindly supported by the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. 21325105), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 21590795, 51572261, 51472244, 51672274, 51661165013, 51372245, and 51672276), National Key Projects for Fundamental Research and Development of China (No. 2016YFB0600903), CAS Interdisciplinary Innovation Team, and Youth Innovation Promotion Association of CAS (No. 2017070). Muhammad Waqas thank the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)-the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) President's Fellowship Programme and CAS-TWAS Postgraduate Fellowship for providing living allowance.

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