Highly textured boron/nitrogen co-doped TiO2 with honeycomb structure showing enhanced visible-light photoelectrocatalytic activity

Abstract

In this work, we report a novel photocatalyst based on boron and nitrogen co-doped TiO2 rutile (1 1 0) honeycomb structures. The photocatalyst has been prepared by simultaneously oxidizing and doping a Ti-foil substrate at 750 °C. The unit cell volume and the crystallite size of grown TiO2 films were measured by Rietveld refinement analysis. The co-doping by boron and nitrogen was achieved simultaneously with the oxidation of the titanium, resulting in a rutile (1 1 0) textured TiO2 film. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis revealed the presence of Ti-O-N and Ti-O-B-N bonds, and the presence of crystal defects in the lattice was detected and displayed by Raman spectroscopy. The water photo-oxidation properties have been measured as well, and the photocurrent of the B/N co-doped rutile sample prepared reached 270 µA/cm2 at 1 V under visible light and was stable in time. The efficient visible light absorption properties of the fabricated nanomaterial were attributed to the presence of oxygen vacancies and the introduction of impurity levels, as well as to synergistic effects between the introduced boron and nitrogen elements. The results presented demonstrate a new route for the preparation of TiO2 based catalysts, and open prospects for the photocatalysis community.