Abstract
Nanostructured potassium-incorporated Ti-based oxides have attracted much attention because the incorporated potassium can influence their structural and physico-chemical properties. With the aim of tuning the structural and physical properties, we have demonstrated the wet corrosion process (WCP) as a simple method for nanostructure fabrication using various Ti-based materials, namely Ti–6Al–4V alloy (TAV), Ti–Ni (TN) alloy and pure Ti, which have 90%, 50% and 100% initial Ti content, respectively. We have systematically investigated the relationship between the Ti content in the initial metal and the precise condition of WCP to control the structural and physical properties of the resulting nanostructures. The WCP treatment involved various concentrations of KOH solutions. The precise conditions for producing K-incorporated nanostructured titanium oxide films (nTOFs) were strongly dependent on the Ti content of the initial metal. Ti and TAV yielded one-dimensional nanowires of K-incorporated nTOFs after treatment with 10 mol/L-KOH solution, whereas TN required a higher concentration (20 mol/L-KOH solution) to produce comparable nanostructures. The obtained nanostructures revealed a blue-shift in UV absorption spectra due to the quantum confinement effects. A significant enhancement of the photocatalytic activity was observed via the chromomeric change and the intermediate formation of methylene blue molecules under UV irradiation. This study demonstrates the WCP as a simple, versatile and scalable method for the production of nanostructured K-incorporated nTOFs to be used as high-performance photocatalysts for environmental and energy applications.
Highlights
For several decades, nanostructured metal oxides have been one of the most extensively studied materials because of their unique and diverse physico-chemical properties and their potential for diverse applications [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]
After treatment with mol/L-KOH solution, ball-like structures were formed on the TN substrates, while at the same conditions, thick and short nanowires were produced on the Ti, and Ti–6Al–4V alloy (TAV) surfaces
The concentrations of the KOH solutions to produce nanostructures differ for the used initial materials, the trend of resulting morphology of nanostructures was almost the same: Short and thick nanowires formed first at a lower concentration, whereas at a higher concentration (>10 mol/L-KOH solution), 3D network structures with thin and long nanowires were favored, which disappeared at much higher concentrations
Summary
For several decades, nanostructured metal oxides have been one of the most extensively studied materials because of their unique and diverse physico-chemical properties and their potential for diverse applications [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8]. Potassium (K)-incorporated titanates have been of particular interest due to their specific photochemical properties or their artificial cage type structure [27,28,29,30] These K-incorporated nanostructured titanium oxides films (nTOFs) have been one of the leaders in this new class of materials, their synthesis has still limitations to tackle. Despite great expectations about these materials, there is still a lack of systematic research and strategy for nanostructure fabrication while simultaneously controlling the physical properties This bottleneck strongly limits their fast implementation in potential applications [35,36,37]. Understanding the relationship between the Ti content of the initial metal and the condition of WCP to control the structural and physical properties makes it possible to produce nTOFs on demand, for various applications. K-incorporated nTOFs with high potential for treating water containing organics, removing metals from water and splitting water
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