Steered polymorphic nanodomains in TiO2 to boost visible-light photocatalytic oxidation

Zeju Zhang; Mang Niu; Wei Li; Chenfeng Ding; Peitao Xie; Yongxin Li; Lili Chen; Xiaopeng Lan; Chunlei Liu; Xiaodong Yan; Xuewei Fu; Yaochun Liu; Yuan Liu; Dapeng Cao; Jingjie Dai; Xiaofen Hong; Chunzhao Liu

doi:10.1039/d2ra00782g

Steered polymorphic nanodomains in TiO₂ to boost visible-light photocatalytic oxidation

RSC Adv. 2022 Mar 28;12(16):9660-9670. doi: 10.1039/d2ra00782g. eCollection 2022 Mar 25.

Authors

Zeju Zhang¹, Mang Niu¹, Wei Li¹, Chenfeng Ding^{2

3}, Peitao Xie¹, Yongxin Li¹, Lili Chen¹, Xiaopeng Lan¹, Chunlei Liu¹, Xiaodong Yan⁴, Xuewei Fu⁵, Yaochun Liu³, Yuan Liu^{1

3}, Dapeng Cao⁶, Jingjie Dai⁷, Xiaofen Hong⁸, Chunzhao Liu¹

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Bio-fibers and Eco-textiles, Institute of Biochemical Engineering, The Affiliated Qingdao Central Hospital of Qingdao University, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Qingdao University Qingdao 266071 China liuyuan@qdu.edu.cn czliu@qdu.edu.cn.
² Energy Materials and Surface Sciences Unit (EMSSU), Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) 1919-1 Tancha Kunigami-gun, Onna-son Okinawa 904-0495 Japan chenfeng.ding@oist.jp.
³ Foshan (Southern China) Institute for New Materials Foshan 528200 China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Synthetic and Biological Colloids, Ministry of Education, School of Chemical and Material Engineering, Jiangnan University Wuxi 214122 China.
⁵ College of Polymer Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Sichuan University Chengdu 610065 Sichuan China.
⁶ Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, Beijing University of Chemical Technology Beijing 100029 China.
⁷ School of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Qingdao Binhai University Qingdao 266555 Shandong China.
⁸ Zhejiang Rich Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd Hangzhou 310000 China.

Abstract

A breakthrough in enhancing visible-light photocatalysis of wide-bandgap semiconductors such as prototypical titania (TiO₂) via cocatalyst decoration is still challenged by insufficient heterojunctions and inevitable interfacial transport issues. Herein, we report a novel TiO₂-based composite material composed of in situ generated polymorphic nanodomains including carbon nitride (C₃N₄) and (001)/(101)-faceted anatase nanocrystals. The introduction of ultrafine C₃N₄ results in the generation of many oxygen vacancies in the TiO₂ lattice, and simultaneously induces the exposure and growth of anatase TiO₂(001) facets with high surface energy. The photocatalytic performance of C₃N₄-induced TiO₂ for degradation of 2,4-dichlorophenol under visible-light irradiation was tested, its apparent rate being up to 1.49 × 10^-2 min^-1, almost 3.8 times as high as that for the pure TiO₂ nanofibers. More significantly, even under low operation temperature and after a long-term photocatalytic process, the composite still exhibits exceptional degradation efficiency and stability. The normalized degradation efficiency and effective lifespan of the composite photocatalyst are far superior to other reported modified photocatalysts.