Abstract
Ag-decorated TiO2 nanostructured materials are promising photocatalysts. We used non-standard cryo-lyophilization and ArF laser ablation methods to produce TiO2 nanosheets and TiO2 nanostructured thin films decorated with Ag nanoparticles. Both methods have a common advantage in that they provide a single multiply twinned Ag(0) characterized by {111} twin boundaries. Advanced microscopy techniques and electron diffraction patterns revealed the formation of multiply twinned Ag(0) structures at elevated temperatures (500 °C and 800 °C). The photocatalytic activity was demonstrated by the efficient degradation of 4-chlorophenol and Total Organic Carbon removal using Ag-TiO2 nanosheets, because the multiply twinned Ag(0) served as an immobilized photocatalytically active center. Ag-TiO2 nanostructured thin films decorated with multiply twinned Ag(0) achieved improved photoelectrochemical water splitting due to the additional induction of a plasmonic effect. The photocatalytic properties of TiO2 nanosheets and TiO2 nanostructured thin films were correlated with the presence of defect-twinned structures formed from Ag(0) nanoparticles with a narrow size distribution, tuned to between 10 and 20 nm. This work opens up new possibilities for understanding the defects generated in Ag-TiO2 nanostructured materials and paves the way for connecting their morphology with their photocatalytic activity.
Highlights
In 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that air pollution occupied the sixth position among all factors leading to death globally [1]
Increasing the temperature resulted in more refined reflection peaks i.e., reflections became narrower as the crystallites grew from 35.37 nm at 500 ◦ C to 78.41 nm at 800 ◦ C (Table 1) [36]
The separation of (e−/h+ ) is a crucial step, and the low quantum yield of any photocatalytic reactions is due to the high rate of recombination between the (e−/h+ ) pairs
Summary
In 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that air pollution occupied the sixth position among all factors leading to death globally [1]. TiO2 is known to be a non-expensive, nontoxic material that exists in three polymorphic structures—anatase, rutile, and brookite. Among these three polymorphs, anatase has attracted the greatest interest in photocatalysis. The direct wide bandgap (Ebg ) of anatase (3.2 eV) remains a major obstacle, limiting its solar energy utilization to about 4% [2] In this context, significant efforts have been directed toward improving the catalytic activity of TiO2 by modifying its Ebg. Generally, nanostructured photocatalysts [3] have been demonstrated to show significant promise, and provide better performance in catalyzing reactions due to their distinct physicochemical properties (melting point, wettability, electrical and thermal conductivity, light absorption, and scattering). The number and variety of TiO2 belonging to the 2D family are far lower than for
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