Broadening the photoresponsive activity of anatase titanium dioxide particles via decoration with partial gold shells

Orawan Khantamat; Chien-Hung Li; Si-Ping Liu; Tingting Liu; Han Ju Lee; Oussama Zenasni; Tai-Chou Lee; Chengzhi Cai; T Randall Lee

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2017.10.053

Broadening the photoresponsive activity of anatase titanium dioxide particles via decoration with partial gold shells

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2018 Mar 1:513:715-725. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2017.10.053. Epub 2017 Oct 27.

Authors

Orawan Khantamat¹, Chien-Hung Li², Si-Ping Liu³, Tingting Liu², Han Ju Lee², Oussama Zenasni², Tai-Chou Lee³, Chengzhi Cai⁴, T Randall Lee⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry and the Texas Center for Superconductivity, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-5003, USA; Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand.
² Department of Chemistry and the Texas Center for Superconductivity, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-5003, USA.
³ Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National Central University, Jhongli City 32001, Taiwan.
⁴ Department of Chemistry and the Texas Center for Superconductivity, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-5003, USA. Electronic address: cai@uh.edu.
⁵ Department of Chemistry and the Texas Center for Superconductivity, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204-5003, USA. Electronic address: trlee@uh.edu.

PMID: 29220686
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2017.10.053

Abstract

Titanium dioxide (TiO₂) has gained increasing interest in materials research due to its outstanding properties and promising applications in a wide range of fields. From this perspective, we report the synthesis of custom-designed anatase TiO₂ submicrometer particles coated with partial Au shells (ATiO₂-AuShl). The synthetic strategy used herein yields uniformly shaped monodisperse particles. Amorphous TiO₂ core particles were synthesized using template-free oxidation and hydrolysis of titanium nitride (TiN); subsequent hydrothermal treatment generated anatase TiO₂ (ATiO₂) particles. Coating ATiO₂ particles with partial Au shells was accomplished using a simple seeded-growth method. Evaluation of the optical properties of these ATiO₂-AuShl particles showed that these submicrometer composites exhibited an intense absorption peak for TiO₂ in the UV region (∼326 nm) and a broad extinction band in the visible range (∼650 nm) arising from the incomplete Au shell. These ATiO₂-AuShl composite particles provide a unique and effective means for broadening the optical response of TiO₂-based nano- and micron-scale materials. The simplicity of our synthetic method should broaden the application of ATiO₂-AuShl particles in various visible light-driven technologies.

Keywords: Partial gold shells; Photocatalysis; Plasmon resonance; TiO(2); Visible light.