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Understanding the doping mechanism of Sn in TiO2 nanorods toward efficient photoelectrochemical performance

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Abstract

Doping metal ions into titanium dioxide (TiO2) is an effective strategy toward the goal of high-performance photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. Understanding the doping mechanism is crucial for tailoring the intrinsic properties of doped TiO2. In this study, we synthesized tin (Sn)-doped TiO2 nanorods using a hydrothermal method and aim to understand the doping mechanism of Sn into TiO2 for enhancing its PEC performance. The experimental results based on the morphological and structural analysis confirm the success of Sn doping into TiO2 in which the dopant is homogeneously distributed in the structure of the nanorods. Density functional theory calculation combined with thermodynamic analysis provides clear evidence for the doping mechanism of Sn into TiO2 crystal lattice. These results indicate that Sn dopant enters the rutile TiO2 lattice as a substitute for Ti site and while the substituted Sn does not induce any localized state within the band gap of TiO2, it gives a significant amount of its valence electron to conduction, thereby helping to improve the photocatalytic activity. Compared with the TiO2 nanorods sample, the Sn-doped TiO2 nanorods sample shows highly efficient PEC performance, where its photocurrent density is significantly improved to 4.2 mA/cm2 with a high photoconversion efficiency of 2.1%. Our results may afford a better understanding of the doping mechanism of Sn in TiO2 and thus suggest that Sn-doped TiO2 can serve as a potential photocatalyst material for a variety of solar energy-driven applications.

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Acknowledgements

This research is funded by Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology Development (NAFOSTED) under grant number 103.02-2018.329.

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  1. Tran Nam Trung and Nguyen Thi Thuy Kieu have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Natural Sciences, Quy Nhon University, Quy Nhon City, Binh Dinh, 55000, Vietnam

    Tran Nam Trung, Nguyen Thi Thuy Kieu & Dai Q. Ho

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Chungnam National University, Daejeon, 305-764, Korea

    Dong-Bum Seo & Eui-Tae Kim

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Contributions

TNT contributed to conceptualization, data curation, formal analysis, investigation, methodology, writing-original draft. NTTK contributed to investigation, software, writing—original draft. DQH contributed to software, writing—original draft. D-BS and E-TK contributed to investigation and validation.

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Correspondence to Tran Nam Trung or Eui-Tae Kim.

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Trung, T.N., Kieu, N.T.T., Ho, D.Q. et al. Understanding the doping mechanism of Sn in TiO2 nanorods toward efficient photoelectrochemical performance. J Mater Sci 58, 2156–2169 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-023-08158-3

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