Selective Photoreduction of Nitric Oxide to Nitrogen by Nanostructured TiO2Photocatalysts: Role of Oxygen Vacancies and Iron Dopant

Photocatalytic NOxabatement: why the selectivity matters

Photocatalytic NO_xabatement is typically accompanied by the release of several potentially dangerous intermediates during the reaction. Herein, we discuss and offer solutions to this problem

Defective TiO2 with oxygen vacancies: synthesis, properties and photocatalytic applications

Titanium dioxide (TiO2), as an important semiconductor metal oxide, has been widely investigated in the field of photocatalysis. The properties of TiO2, including its light absorption, charge transport and surface adsorption, are closely related to its defect disorder, which in turn plays a significant role in the photocatalytic performance of TiO2. Among all the defects identified in TiO2, oxygen vacancy is one of the most important and is supposed to be the prevalent defect in many metal oxides, which has been widely investigated both by theoretical calculations and experimental characterizations. Here, we give a short review on the existing strategies for the synthesis of defective TiO2 with oxygen vacancies, and the defect related properties of TiO2 including structural, electronic, optical, dissociative adsorption and reductive properties, which are intimately related to the photocatalytic performance of TiO2. In particular, photocatalytic applications with regard to defective TiO2 are outlined. In addition, we offer some perspectives on the challenge and new direction for future research in this field. We hope that this tutorial minireview would provide some useful contribution to the future design and fabrication of defective semiconductor-based nanomaterials for diverse photocatalytic applications.

Porous TiO2 microspheres with tunable properties for photocatalytic air purification

The synthesis of highly-crystalline porous TiO(2) microspheres is reported using ultrasonic spray pyrolysis (USP) in the presence of colloidal silica as a template. We have exploited the interactions between hot SiO(2) template particles surface and TiO(2) precursor that occur during reaction inside the droplets, to control the physical and chemical properties of the resulting particles. Varying the SiO(2) to titanium precursor molar ratio and the colloidal silica dimension, we obtained porous titania microspheres with tunable morphology, porosity, BET surface area, crystallite size, band-gap, and phase composition. In this regard, we have also observed the preferential formation of anatase vs. rutile with increasing initial surface area of the silica template. The porous TiO(2) microspheres were tested in the photocatalytic degradation of nitrogen oxides (NO(x)) in the gas phase. USP prepared nanostructured titania samples were found to have significantly superior specific activity per surface area compared to a commercial reference sample (P25 by Evonik-Degussa).

Iron insertion and hematite segregation on Fe-doped TiO2 nanoparticles obtained from sol-gel and hydrothermal methods

Iron-doped TiO(2) (Fe:TiO(2)) nanoparticles were synthesized by the sol-gel method (with Fe/Ti molar ratio corresponding to 1, 3, and 5%), followed by hydrothermal treatment, drying, and annealing. A similar methodology was used to synthesize TiO(2) and α-Fe(2)O(3) nanoparticles. For comparison, a mixture hematite/titania, with Fe/Ti = 4% was also investigated. Characterization of the samples using Rietveld refinement of X-ray diffraction data revealed that TiO(2) consisted of 82% anatase and 18% brookite; for Fe:TiO(2), brookite increased to 30% and hematite was also identified (0.5, 1.0, and 1.2 wt % for samples prepared with 1, 3, and 5% of Fe/Ti). For hematite/titania mixture, Fe/Ti was estimated as 4.4%, indicating the Rietveld method reliability for estimation of phase composition. Because the band gap energy, estimated as 3.2 eV for TiO(2), gradually ranged from 3.0 to 2.7 eV with increasing Fe content at Fe:TiO(2), it can be assumed that a Fe fraction was also inserted as dopant in the TiO(2) lattice. Extended X-ray absorption fine structure spectra obtained for the Ti K-edge and Fe K-edge indicated that absorbing Fe occupied a Ti site in the TiO(2) lattice, but hematite features were not observed. Hematite particles also could not be identified in the images obtained by transmission electron microscopy, in spite of iron identification by elemental mapping, suggesting that hematite can be segregated at the grain boundaries of Fe:TiO(2).