Abstract
Due to the strong bonding between Ti and O atoms, creating oxygen vacancy in stable TiO2 usually involves harsh synthetic conditions. In this work, inspired by DFT calculation results that much lower energy is required to dissociate Ti-OH bond than Ti-O bond, we report a facile approach by simply calcining TiOx(OH)y precursor in inertia atmosphere, to effectively create oxygen vacancy in titania (Ti-N2-600). During CO2 photoreduction, CH4 and CO are the major products on Ti-N2-600, whose evolution rates are about 2.8 times and 3.6 times those on commercial TiO2 (P25), respectively. The in-situ Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) results indicate the oxygen vacancy in Ti-N2-600 favors 1) CO2 activation and photoreduction since CO2·- is generated but not detected on P25; 2) the *COL formation and further transformation. This Ti-OH breakage strategy presents a new insight into oxygen vacancy generation in TiO2 and more generically other metal oxide semiconductors.
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