One-pot, solvothermal synthesis of TiO2-graphene composite nanosheets

Zhe Zhang; Wenshu Yang; Xiaoxin Zou; Fugang Xu; Xiaodan Wang; Bailin Zhang; Jilin Tang

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2012.07.068

One-pot, solvothermal synthesis of TiO2-graphene composite nanosheets

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2012 Nov 15;386(1):198-204. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2012.07.068. Epub 2012 Aug 7.

Authors

Zhe Zhang¹, Wenshu Yang, Xiaoxin Zou, Fugang Xu, Xiaodan Wang, Bailin Zhang, Jilin Tang

Affiliation

¹ State Key Laboratory of Electroanalytical Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, PR China.

PMID: 22925121
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2012.07.068

Abstract

In this article, we propose a facile one-pot solvothermal route for synthesizing TiO(2)-graphene composite nanosheets (TGCN). In the system, ethylene glycol not only as a reducing agent can convert graphene oxide to reduced graphene oxide nanosheets, but also is employed to control the hydrolysis and condensation rates of tetrabutoxytitanium. The obtained TGCN hybrid materials are characterized by atomic force microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, UV-vis spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and thermal gravimetric analysis. It is found that the quantity of H(2)O used in the reaction is the key to obtain high-quality product. The photocatalytic activities of the products are evaluated using the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue (MB) as a probe reaction. The results showed that the obtained TGCN have an enhanced adsorption capacity and remarkable improvements in the photodegradation rate of MB under visible light compared to P25.