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Molten-salt synthesis of Cu–SrTiO3/TiO2 nanotube heterostructures for photocatalytic water splitting

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Abstract

A series of Cu-loaded SrTiO3/TiO2 nanotube heterostructures were synthesized by a facile molten salts method and an impregnation-calcination method. Through adjusting the molar ratio of Sr/Ti, the photocatalytic performance of the samples changed regularly. When Sr/Ti = 0.2, the catalyst showed the highest performance in water splitting and the H2 generation amount was 0.597 mmol under UV irradiation for 8 h. The enhanced performance of Cu-loaded SrTiO3/TiO2 nanotubes could be attributed to the heterostructures, the small crystallite size, and the reduced band gap inside them.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support by the program for young scientists (YangFan Program, 14YF1410800) at Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality, young teachers training scheme of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (ZZyy15085, ZZyy15086), the program of introducing talents of Shanghai Institute of Technology (YJ2014-42), and the special fund to support the development of local colleges of Ministry of Finance of China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Shanghai, 201418, China

    Feng Zhu, Cuiping Li, Minh Ngoc Ha, Zhifu Liu & Zhe Zhao

  2. Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials, Research Institute of Industrial Catalysis, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, China

    Minh Ngoc Ha

  3. School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, Shanghai Institute of Technology, Shanghai, 201418, China

    Qiangsheng Guo

  4. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, 100 44, Sweden

    Zhe Zhao

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  1. Feng Zhu
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Correspondence to Zhifu Liu.

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Zhu, F., Li, C., Ha, M.N. et al. Molten-salt synthesis of Cu–SrTiO3/TiO2 nanotube heterostructures for photocatalytic water splitting. J Mater Sci 51, 4639–4649 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-016-9779-9

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