Gray Ta2O5 Nanowires with Greatly Enhanced Photocatalytic Performance

Guilian Zhu; Tianquan Lin; Houlei Cui; Wenli Zhao; Hui Zhang; Fuqiang Huang

doi:10.1021/acsami.5b07685

Gray Ta2O5 Nanowires with Greatly Enhanced Photocatalytic Performance

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2016 Jan 13;8(1):122-7. doi: 10.1021/acsami.5b07685. Epub 2015 Dec 24.

Authors

Guilian Zhu^{1

2}, Tianquan Lin¹, Houlei Cui^{1

2}, Wenli Zhao^{1

2}, Hui Zhang¹, Fuqiang Huang^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion and State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Shanghai 200050, P.R. China.
² Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences and State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University , Beijing 100871, P.R. China.

PMID: 26670703
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.5b07685

Abstract

Black TiO2, with enhanced solar absorption and photocatalytic activity, has gained extensive attention, inspiring us to investigate the reduction of other wide-bandgap semiconductors for improved performance. Herein, we report the preparation of gray Ta2O5 nanowires with disordered shells and abundant defects via aluminum reduction. Its water decontamination is 2.5 times faster and hydrogen production is 2.3-fold higher over pristine Ta2O5. The reduced Ta2O5 also delivers significantly enhanced photoelectrochemical performance compared with the pristine Ta2O5 nanowires, including much higher carrier concentration, easier electron-hole separation and 11 times larger photocurrent. Our results demonstrate that Ta2O5 will have great potentials in photocatalysis and solar energy utilization after proper modification.

Keywords: PEC; Ta2O5; aluminum reduction; nanowire; photocatalysis.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't