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Controllable synthesis and tunable photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nanowires via alcohol-thermal method

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Abstract

Titania nanowires (TiO2-NW) with tunable aspect ratios and morphologies were directly synthesized using a simple alcohol-thermal technique. Specifically, ethanol and acetic acid were used as solvents and lithium ion was used as the capping agent to promote the conversion of titanium butoxide into TiO2-NW. The morphologies and crystal phases of TiO2-NW were determined by the molar ratio of solvents and the content (mol%) of lithium ion. The band gap of TiO2-NW with pure anatase phase is slightly bigger than that of TiO2-NW with a mixture of anatase and rutile phases. All TiO2-NW could achieve effective decolorization of methyl blue (the decolorization rate is over 95%) after 35-min ultraviolet (UV) irradiation.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51408528) and the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province, China (No. E2014203089).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Civil Engineering and Mechanics, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, 066004, China

    Zheng-Xia Xu & An-Qi Wang

  2. Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Zheng-Xia Xu & Yong-Fa Zhu

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  1. Zheng-Xia Xu
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  2. An-Qi Wang
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  3. Yong-Fa Zhu
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Correspondence to Yong-Fa Zhu.

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Xu, ZX., Wang, AQ. & Zhu, YF. Controllable synthesis and tunable photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nanowires via alcohol-thermal method. Rare Met. 38, 390–396 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-019-01243-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12598-019-01243-0

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