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Facile route to fabricate carbon-doped TiO2 nanoparticles and its mechanism of enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity

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Abstract

High-efficiency photocatalysis requires wide photoresponse range and effective separation of photogenerated charges to fully utilize solar energy. Exploring the simple and cheap methods to synthesize efficient photocatalysts is still a challenging issue. Herein, we report a facile and simple room-temperature hydrolysis method using glucose as carbon source to prepare visible light-active C-doped TiO2 photocatalyst. This approach features low-cost, reliable, and easily upscalable. It is found that C atoms have been incorporated into the interstitial position of anatase TiO2 lattice and distributed homogeneously throughout the surface of TiO2 nanoparticles. The appropriate C doping can greatly improve the separation of photogenerated electron–hole pairs in C-doped TiO2. The C-doped TiO2 samples exhibit enhanced photocatalytic activity with the degradation efficiency under UV and visible light irradiation, which is much faster than that of pure TiO2. The mechanism of the enhanced photocatalytic activity is discussed in detail, which is confirmed by using different scavengers. The work provides a simple and useful way to prepare C-doped wide-gap semiconductors with enhanced photocatalytic activity.

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Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the Changsha Science and Technology Plan Projects, China (Grant No. K1403067-11) and Environmental Protection Science and Technology Project of Hunan Province.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Physics, School of Physics and Electronics, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, People’s Republic of China

    Jing Zhang, Gui-Fang Huang, Dongfeng Li, Bing-Xin Zhou, Anlian Pan & Wei-Qing Huang

  2. School of Science, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha, 410073, Hunan, People’s Republic of China

    Shengli Chang

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  1. Jing Zhang
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  2. Gui-Fang Huang
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  3. Dongfeng Li
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  4. Bing-Xin Zhou
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  7. Wei-Qing Huang
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Correspondence to Gui-Fang Huang or Wei-Qing Huang.

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Zhang, J., Huang, GF., Li, D. et al. Facile route to fabricate carbon-doped TiO2 nanoparticles and its mechanism of enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity. Appl. Phys. A 122, 994 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-016-0522-9

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