The activity of Au nanoparticle-loaded P25 TiO2 (Au/P25) plasmonic photocatalysts, evaluated by the oxidative decomposition of formic acid in water under visible light irradiation, was enhanced up to 3 times by simply mixing Au/P25 with photocatalytically inactive h-BN nanosheets as a result of electron transfer from photoexcited Au/TiO2 to the h-BN nanosheets and retardation of the charge reco...

Photocatalytic processes are more and more widely used to remove different pollutants including microorganisms from liquid and gaseous media. However, methods for evaluating the efficiency of photocatalysts at inactivation/disintegration of microorganisms in the liquid film have limitations at predicting their efficiency for microorganism-containing aerosols. The comparison of two types of phot...

Titania is the most widely studied photocatalyst. In its mixed-phase configuration ( anatase–rutile form) – as manifested in the commercially available P25 Degussa material – titania was previously found to exhibit the best photocatalytic properties reported for the pure system. A great deal of published research by various workers in the field has not fully explained the underlying mechanism f...

Visible light photocatalysts based on doped crystalline forms of titanium dioxide (TiO2) have attracted significant scientific attention in recent decades. Amorphous TiO2, despite many merits over crystalline phases, has not been studied as thoroughly. In this paper, an in-depth analysis of the electronic properties of doped amorphous TiO2 is performed using density functional theory with Hubba...

Photocatalysts produce free radicals upon receiving light energy; thus, they possess antibacterial properties. Silver (Ag) is an antibacterial material that disrupts bacterial physiology. Our previous study reported that the high antibacterial property of silver nanoparticles on the surfaces of visible light-responsive nitrogen-doped TiO2 photocatalysts [TiO2(N)] could be further enhanced by vi...

Semiconductor photocatalysts have important applications in the fields of renewable energy and environmental remediation. Of these, TiO2 stands out as one of the most investigated compounds in contemporary material science. Because of its unique physical and chemical properties, TiO2 is extensively used in photoelectrochemical applications including photocatalysis and photovoltaics. In this Rev...

Plasmonic hot-electron generation has recently come into focus as a new scheme for solar energy conversion. So far, however, due to the relatively narrow bandwidth of the surface plasmon resonances and the insufficient resonant light absorption, most of plasmonic photocatalysts show narrow-band spectral responsivities and small solar energy conversion efficiencies. Here we experimentally demons...

BACKGROUND PURPOSE Photocatalytic water splitting for hydrogen evolution is a potential way to solve many energy and environmental issues. Developing visible-light-active photocatalysts to efficiently utilize sunlight and finding proper ways to improve photocatalytic activity for H2 evolution have always been hot topics for research. This study attempts to expand the use of sunlight and to enha...

n-Type anatase-phase one-dimensional TiO2 nanostructure arrays coated with nanoparticles of Cu or CuPt have emerged as high performance photocatalysts for both photooxidation and photoreduction. The properties of the catalyst-promoter interface are recognized to be critical to this high performance but are largely unknown. Using X-ray and ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopies (XPS/UPS), we p...

Photocatalytic degradation of organic compounds requires photoexcited holes with strong oxidative power in the valence band (VB) of semiconductors. Although numerous types of doped semiconductors, such as nitrogen-doped TiO2, have been studied as visible-light-sensitive photocatalysts, the quantum yields of these materials were very low because of the limited oxidation power of holes in the nit...