Synergistic modulation of oxygen vacancies and carbon atoms in TiO2 via a simple pot‐in‐pot reaction for improved visible‐light‐driven photocatalytic performances

Abstract

AbstractNovel synthesis methods are urgently expected for visible‐light‐driven photocatalysts. Hereby we report a series of TiO2‐based photocatalysts (T‐x) by using a simple pot‐in‐pot reaction approach. In this approach, two reaction media are isolated from each other by the crucible reactor. The obtained T‐x sample shows nanosheet‐aggregate structure and wide visible‐light absorption property with an optimal bandgap of 2.35 eV. Factors that influence the bandgap modulation, including nitrogen, fluorine, carbon and oxygen vacancy etc., are discussed in detail. Characterization results demonstrate a substantial increase of oxygen vacancies and carbon atoms in T‐x sample, which were proven to the main reason for the extended visible‐light absorption and enhanced photocatalytic performance. Under visible‐light irradiation, T‐x sample shows excellent photocatalytic degradation activity for RhB with a k value of 0.027 min−1 and good photoelectrochemical performance. Trapping experiments reveal that ⋅OH are the main active species to oxidize the RhB dye. This new pot‐in‐pot reaction approach enables synthesis of novel photocatalytic materials with wide visible‐light‐response.