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Nanotube confinement-induced g-C3N4/TiO2 nanorods with rich oxygen vacancies for enhanced photocatalytic water decontamination

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Abstract

Construction of semiconductor heterojunctions is an efficient strategy to improve photo-induced charges separation and thus enhance photocatalytic activities. Herein, g-C3N4/TiO2 heterostructures were prepared via a facile thermal procedure, with TiO2 nanorods as matrix and g-C3N4 as visible-light sensitizer. Heterojunctions formed while precursors cyanamide polymerized to g-C3N4 and protonated titanate nanotube (H-TNTs) dehydrated and shrinked to TiO2 nanorods. Notably, confined polymerization of g-C3N4 occurred at both external surface and internal space of H-TNTs with the assistant of vacuum treatment, while NH3 released from cyanamide decomposition yielded abundant oxygen vacancies (VO) in TiO2 nanorods. Compared with pristine TiO2 nanorods, the heterostructured g-C3N4/TiO2 nanorods possess 1.7 times more active in photocatalytic removal of organic dye Orange II. A mechanism was proposed for heterostructured g-C3N4/TiO2 nanorods, being attributed to synergistic increasing light harvesting by VO and charges separation by heterojunctions.

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by A Project of Shandong Province Higher Educational Science and Technology Program (No. J18KA011) and Doctoral Found of QUST (No. 010022803).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Materials Science and Engineering, Qingdao University of Science and Technology, Zhengzhou Road 53, Qingdao, 266042, Shandong Province, People’s Republic of China

    Daixun Jiang, Xun Sun, Hua Zhang, Kun Wang, Liang Shi & Fanglin Du

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  1. Daixun Jiang
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  2. Xun Sun
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  3. Hua Zhang
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  4. Kun Wang
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  5. Liang Shi
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Correspondence to Liang Shi.

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Jiang, D., Sun, X., Zhang, H. et al. Nanotube confinement-induced g-C3N4/TiO2 nanorods with rich oxygen vacancies for enhanced photocatalytic water decontamination. Appl. Phys. A 126, 246 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00339-020-3430-y

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