Amorphous carbon inhibited TiO2 phase transition in aqueous solution and its application in photocatalytic degradation of organic dye

Abstract

Compared with anatase phase TiO2, rutile phase TiO2 is not suitable to be used as high-performance catalyst due to its disadvantages such as low carrier mobility and few active sites. However, rutile phase TiO2 can be easily generated in the chlorine-containing solution during hydrothermal process, which is a major problem for the preparation of high-performance TiO2 based photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic devices. In this study, we demonstrate a suppression phenomenon of anatase-to-rutile phase transition in aqueous solution induced by amorphous carbon. Amorphous carbon formed by the carbonization of glucose adhered on the primary TiO2 grains, inhibiting the generation of rutile phase TiO2 nanostructures in a certain degree. During subsequent calcination process, anatase phase TiO2 formed gradually. And TiO2 phase junction was obtained. The TiO2 phase junction exhibits enhanced photocatalytic degradation performance of organic dyes due to the effective separation of carriers and abundant active sites. This study provides a new and feasible way for controllable fabrication of high performance anatase phase TiO2 based photoelectrochemical and photocatalytic devices.