Charge separation by tetrahexahedron-SrTiO3/TiO2 heterojunction as an efficient photocatalyst

Abstract

Charge separation plays a key role in the conversion of solar energy into chemical energy for use in the redox reaction and as well as in the photocatalytic activity. In this study, SrTiO3 particles with different morphologies including irregular, tetrahexahedron, and cube were synthesized by an in situ solvothermal method. The photocatalytic activity of the synthesized nanoparticles was investigated in the photocatalytic decomposition of methylene blue under UV light irradiation. Tetrahexahedron SrTiO3 particles exhibited high decomposition activity (70 %), which is about two times higher than those of the irregular and cubic SrTiO3 particles. The high decomposition activity of tetrahexahedron SrTiO3 particles could be attributed to the improvement of charge separation achieved on different crystal facets. To reach a good charge separation, tetrahexahedron SrTiO3/TiO2 coupled nanoparticles were fabricated by impregnation method. Results showed that coupling tetrahexahedron SrTiO3 with TiO2 could produce efficient charge separation between tetrahexahedron SrTiO3 and TiO2 due to their matched band edges. In order to achieve better charge separation, the tetrahexahedron SrTiO3/90 %TiO2 sample was calcined at different temperatures in the 450–750 °C range. Tetrahexahedron SrTiO3/90 %TiO2 coupled nanoparticles calcined at 650 °C show high photocatalytic activity compared with other samples. The prepared samples were characterized by using various techniques such as X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, photoluminescence emission spectra, and UV–Vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy.