Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Vol.53, No.49, 19249-19256, 2014
One-Pot Fabrication of C-Fe-Codoped TiO2 Sheets with Dominant {001} Facets for Enhanced Visible Light Photocatalytic Activity
C-Fe-codoped TiO2 sheets (CFTS) with dominant {001} facets have been synthesized by a one-pot hydrothermal approach using TiC and Fe2O3 as the reactants in a HNO3HF mixed solution. The obtained CFTS samples appear as the aggregates of highly truncated bipyramidal microsheets with the length of 12 mu m and the thickness of 100-200 nm. The doped C atoms exist as the O-Ti-C structure or interstitial C in TiO2 lattice, while the doped Fe atoms replace some of Ti4+ to form the Ti-O-Fe structure. In comparison with the C-doped TiO2 sheets, all CFTS samples exhibit a narrower band gap, stronger visible light absorption, and higher separation efficiency of photogenerated carriers. Moreover, when the atomic ratio of Fe to Ti is 1%, the CFTS sample shows the highest photocatalytic activity by measuring the decomposition rate of RhB under visible light. These CFTS materials may become promising visible light photocatalysts for organic pollutant degradation and efficient H-2 evolution.