Interface engineering of TiO$_2$@PANI nanostructures for efficient visible-light activation

Bulletin of Materials Science

SUDONG YANG^2¹  LIN CHEN^1² 

[1] Laboratory of Environmental Science and Technology, The Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, People’s Republic of China^2;Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Product Quality Supervision and Inspection Institute, Urumqi 830011, People’s Republic of China^1

关键词: Photocatalysis;    TiO$_2$-based materials;    heterojunction;    efficient charge separation.;   

DOI  :  

学科分类：材料工程

来源: Indian Academy of Sciences

【 摘 要 】

Core–shell-structured TiO$_2$@PANI composites were fabricated using negatively charged titanium glycolate (TG) precursor spheres, which were decorated using hydrochloric acid; subsequently, the uniform polyaniline (PANI) layer could be attached onto the surface of the polystyrene spheres by in situ chemical oxidative polymerization and finally, the resulting PANI-grafted TG were allowed to hydrolyse by treating the material with hot water. The TGs were transformed to porous TiO$_2$, leading to the formation of core–shell TiO$_2$@PANI composites. The resulting TiO$_2$@PANI compositephotocatalysts were characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, ultraviolet–visible diffuse reflection spectroscopy and photoluminescence spectroscopy. Significantly, the TiO$_2$@PANI composite photocatalysts exhibited dramatically enhanced photo-induced electron–hole separation efficiency, which was confirmed by the results of photocurrentmeasurements. PANI was dispersed uniformly over the porous TiO$_2$ surface with an intimate electronic contact on the interface to act cooperatively to achieve enhanced photocatalytic properties, indicating that core–shell TiO$_2$@PANI composite photocatalysts could be promising candidate catalysts under visible-light irradiation. The mechanism of enhancing photocatalytic activity was proposed on the basis of the experimental results and estimated energy band positions.

【 授权许可】

CC BY