Ti-O-O coordination bond caused visible light photocatalytic property of layered titanium oxide.

Xingang Kong,Jiayin Li,Jie Fei,Qi Feng,Jianfeng Huang,Cuiyan Li,Chaobin Zeng,Xing Wang

doi:10.1038/srep29049

Abstract

The layered titanium oxide is a useful and unique precursor for the facile and rapid preparation of the peroxide layered titanium oxide H1.07Ti1.73O4·nH2O (HTO) crystal with enhanced visible light photoactivity. The H2O2 molecules as peroxide chemicals rapidly enter into the interlayers of HTO crystal, and coordinate with Ti within TiO6 octahedron to form a mass of Ti-O-O coordination bond in the interlayers. The introduction of these Ti-O-O coordination bonds result in lowering the band gap of HTO, and promoting the separation efficiency of the photo induced electron–hole pairs. Meanwhile, the photocatalytic investigation indicates that such peroxide HTO crystal has the enhanced photocatalytic performance for RhB degradation and water splitting to generate oxygen under visible light irradiating.

Highlights

The layered titanium oxide is a useful and unique precursor for the facile and rapid preparation of the peroxide layered titanium oxide H1.07Ti1.73O4·nH2O (HTO) crystal with enhanced visible light photoactivity
The oxygen-rich TiO2 is mainly prepared by the thermal decomposition of peroxo-titania complex xerogel, in which the H2O2 solution is usually used as the oxygen rich chemicals[8,9]
Since the yellow showed of peroxide HTO crystal is caused by the presence of the abundant Ti-O-O coordination bonds in the interlayers, we investigate the stability of peroxide sample to temperature, light and acid/base via the color change and structure of sample

Summary

Introduction

The layered titanium oxide is a useful and unique precursor for the facile and rapid preparation of the peroxide layered titanium oxide H1.07Ti1.73O4·nH2O (HTO) crystal with enhanced visible light photoactivity. The H2O2 molecules as peroxide chemicals rapidly enter into the interlayers of HTO crystal, and coordinate with Ti within TiO6 octahedron to form a mass of Ti-O-O coordination bond in the interlayers The introduction of these Ti-O-O coordination bonds result in lowering the band gap of HTO, and promoting the separation efficiency of the photo induced electron–hole pairs. The crystalline TiO2 is treated by H2O2 to not produce the peroxide TiO2 crystal or the soluble peroxide titanate complex, and to form the Ti-O-O coordination bonds in the face of TiO2 crystal[17,18] This is due to the solid structure of TiO2 crystal, resulting in that the H2O2 molecules cannot enter into the inward of TiO2 crystal. The peroxide HTO crystal can effectively absorb the visible light of the solar spectrum, and presents the enhanced photocatalytic performance for the RhB degradation under visible light irradiating

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion