The exposed facets of a crystal are known to be one of the key factors to its physical, chemical and electronic properties. Herein, we demonstrate the role of amines on the controlled synthesis of TiO2 nanocrystals (NCs) with diverse shapes and different exposed facets. The chemical, physical and electronic properties of the as-synthesized TiO2 NCs were evaluated and their photoredox activity was tested. It was found that the intrinsic photoredox activity of TiO2 NCs can be enhanced by controlling the chemical environment of the surface, i.e.; through morphology evolution. In particular, the rod shape TiO2 NCs with ∼25% of {101} and ∼75% of {100}/{010} exposed facets show 3.7 and 3.1 times higher photocatalytic activity than that of commercial Degussa P25 TiO2 toward the degradation of methyl orange and methylene blue, respectively. The higher activity of the rod shape TiO2 NCs is ascribed to the facetsphilic nature of the photogenerated carriers within the NCs. The photocatalytic activity of TiO2 NCs are found to be in the order of {101}+{100}/{010} (nanorods) > {101}+{001}+{100}/{010} (nanocuboids and nanocapsules) > {101} (nanoellipsoids) > {001} (nanosheets) providing the direct evidence of exposed facets-depended photocatalytic activity.
Keywords: TiO2 nanocrystals; capping agent; growth mechanism; photocatalysis; redox activity; shape-control.