Hydrogenated crystalline TiO2 with oxygen vacancy (OV) defect has been broadly investigated in recent years. Different from crystalline TiO2, hydrogenated amorphous TiO2-x for advanced photocatalytic applications is scarcely reported. In this work, we prepared hydrogenated amorphous TiO2-x (HA-TiO2-x) using a unique liquid plasma hydrogenation strategy, and demonstrated its highly visible-light photoactivity. Density functional theory combined with comprehensive analyses was to gain fundamental understanding of the correlation among the OV concentration, electronic band structure, photon capturing, reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation, and photocatalytic activity. One important finding was that the narrower the bandgap HA-TiO2-x possessed, the higher photocatalytic efficiency it exhibited. Given the narrow bandgap and extraordinary visible-light absorption, HA-TiO2-x showed excellent visible-light photodegradation in rhodamine B (98.7%), methylene blue (99.85%), and theophylline (99.87) within two hours, as well as long-term stability. The total organic carbon (TOC) removal rates of rhodamine B, methylene blue, and theophylline were measured to 55%, 61.8%, and 50.7%, respectively, which indicated that HA-TiO2-x exhibited high wastewater purification performance. This study provided a direct and effective hydrogenation method to produce reduced amorphous TiO2-x which has great potential in practical environmental remediation.
Keywords: band structure; hydrogenated TiO2−x; hydrogenation; liquid plasma; oxygen vacancy.