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Enhanced photovoltaic and photoelectrocatalytic properties by free-standing TiO2 nanotubes via anodization

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Abstract

This work employs a simple anodization to develop free-standing TiO2 nanotubes with controllable sizes via a self-detaching technique, and the resulting close-bottom-up free-standing TiO2 nanotubes are faced Degussa P25 particle film, precoated on a fluorine-doped SnO2 conductive glass, to fabricate a TiO2 composite. The resulting composites, whose sizes can be controlled by modulating the reanodizing time, were used as the photoanode films and oxidative catalyst to investigate their corresponding photoelectrochemical properties. Compared with P25 particle film, these resulting composites reveal the improved photocatalytic and photovoltaic performance, which results from the effective transfer of photo-generated charges by these characteristic nanotubular arrays. The composite, based on the free-standing TiO2 nanotubes (~10.88 μm), indicates the highest photovoltaic conversion efficiency (7.64 %) under a standard AM 1.5 solar simulator and degradation rate (95.20 %) under the UV irradiation of 75 min, and these results are probably attributed by the positive synergistic effect of the transport of photo-generated charges, the diffusion path of reactants, and the penetration length of incident light into films in comparison to other free-standing TiO2 nanotubes. In addition, the higher photoelectrocatalytic activity is acquired by electrochemically assisted photocatalytic degradation.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Basic Research Program of China (973 program, No. 2012CB720100, No. 2014CB239300), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21406164, 21466035), and Science Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (No. 20130032120019, No. 20110032110037).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Juanru Huang, Tao Yu & Lin Zhao

  2. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Juanru Huang, Lin Zhao & Hang Liu

  3. School of Science, Tibet University, Lhasa City, 850000, China

    Xin Tan

  4. Tianjin University-National Institute for Materials Science (TU-NIMS) Joint Research Center, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Tao Yu

Authors
  1. Juanru Huang
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  2. Xin Tan
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  3. Tao Yu
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  4. Lin Zhao
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  5. Hang Liu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tao Yu.

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Huang, J., Tan, X., Yu, T. et al. Enhanced photovoltaic and photoelectrocatalytic properties by free-standing TiO2 nanotubes via anodization. J Solid State Electrochem 19, 1151–1160 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-014-2699-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10008-014-2699-1

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