Uniform Gold-Nanoparticle-Decorated {001}-Faceted Anatase TiO2 Nanosheets for Enhanced Solar-Light Photocatalytic Reactions

Huimin Shi; Shi Zhang; Xupeng Zhu; Yu Liu; Tao Wang; Tian Jiang; Guanhua Zhang; Huigao Duan

doi:10.1021/acsami.7b12470

Uniform Gold-Nanoparticle-Decorated {001}-Faceted Anatase TiO₂ Nanosheets for Enhanced Solar-Light Photocatalytic Reactions

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2017 Oct 25;9(42):36907-36916. doi: 10.1021/acsami.7b12470. Epub 2017 Oct 13.

Authors

Huimin Shi¹, Shi Zhang², Xupeng Zhu¹, Yu Liu³, Tao Wang⁴, Tian Jiang³, Guanhua Zhang², Huigao Duan²

Affiliations

¹ School of Physics and Electronics, State Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing for Vehicle Body, Hunan University , Hunan 410082, P. R. China.
² State Key Laboratory of Advanced Design and Manufacturing for Vehicle Body, National Engineering Research Center for High Efficiency Grinding, College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Hunan University , Hunan 410082, P. R. China.
³ College of Optoelectronic Science and Engineering, National University of Defense Technology , Changsha 410073, P. R. China.
⁴ College of Physics and Electronic Engineering, Northwest Normal University , Lanzhou 730070, P. R. China.

PMID: 28990759
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.7b12470

Abstract

The {001}-faceted anatase TiO₂ micro-/nanocrystals have been widely investigated for enhancing the photocatalysis and photoelectrochemical performance of TiO₂ nanostructures, but their practical applications still require improved energy conversion efficiency under solar-light and enhanced cycling stability. In this work, we demonstrate the controlled growth of ultrathin {001}-faceted anatase TiO₂ nanosheets on flexible carbon cloth for enhancing the cycling stability, and the solar-light photocatalytic performance of the synthesized TiO₂ nanosheets can be significantly improved by decorating with vapor-phase-deposited uniformly distributed plasmonic gold nanoparticles. The fabricated Au-TiO₂ hybrid system shows an 8-fold solar-light photocatalysis enhancement factor in photodegrading Rhodamine B, a high photocurrent density of 300 μA cm^-2 under the illumination of AM 1.5G, and 100% recyclability under a consecutive long-term cycling measurement. Combined with electromagnetic simulations and systematic control experiments, it is believed that the tandem-type separation and transition of plasmon-induced hot electrons from Au nanoparticles to the {001} facet of anatase TiO₂, and then to the neighboring {101} facet, is responsible for the enhanced solar-light photochemical performance of the hybrid system. The Au-TiO₂ nanosheet system addresses well the problems of the limited solar-light response of anatase TiO₂ and fast recombination of photogenerated electron-hole pairs, representing a promising high-performance recyclable solar-light-responding system for practical photocatalytic reactions.

Keywords: Au nanoparticles; plasmon resonance; solar-light photocatalytic reactions; tandem-type electron separation; {001}-faceted anatase TiO2 nanosheets.