Hot electrons coupling-enhanced photocatalysis of super black carbon aerogels/titanium oxide composite
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Research Letter
Hot electrons coupling-enhanced photocatalysis of super black carbon aerogels/titanium oxide composite Hongqiang Wang*, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Special Artificial Microstructure Materials and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, People’s Republic of China; School of Physics Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, People’s Republic of China Xinru He*, School of Physics Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, People’s Republic of China Bin Zhou, Jun Shen, and Ai Du, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Special Artificial Microstructure Materials and Technology, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, People’s Republic of China; School of Physics Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 200092, People’s Republic of China Address all correspondence to Ai Du at [email protected] (Received 23 January 2018; accepted 5 April 2018)
Abstract To evaluate whether the photocatalysis efficiency of titanium oxide (TiO2) increases under the shading of carbon aerogel (CA), super black CA/ TiO2 composite sheets were directly fabricated by physical mixing of CA, TiO2 powder, and binder. It was found that the photocatalysis efficiency of composite sheets were higher than that of pure TiO2 sheet. We attribute this phenomenon to the hot electrons coupling between CA and TiO2. Besides the direct light absorption of TiO2, the hot electrons generating and indirect energy transfer from CA to TiO2 may enhance the photocatalysis efficiency of TiO2.
Introduction With the development of industry and urbanization, organic pollutants in rivers and oceans have become a serious environmental problem.[1–3] It is a challenge for human beings to develop the simple and effective methods to treat organic pollutants. Titanium oxide (TiO2) is a widely used photocatalyst to realize the degradation of organic matter for its optical and electrical properties, non-toxicity, chemical stability, and low production cost. However, TiO2 has relatively low photocatalysis efficiency, due to its wide band gap (Eg: 3.0–3.2 eV) and low light absorption. Many researchers have been devoted to reducing the band gap and making it more active in the visible light spectrum by doping[4–14] but it is a challenge to fabricate TiO2-based photocatalyst with high light absorbance. Carbon aerogels (CAs) are highly porous materials with three-dimensional (3D) microporous and mesoporous network.[15] The CA had been extensively studied by researchers due to its many excellent properties, such as the large surface area, the tunable & unique property, and low bulk density.[16–20] The CAs are promising materials for hydrogen storage, electrode materials for supercapacitors and electrochemical double-layer capacitors, adsorption materials to remove poisonous gases, light absorb materials, and so on.[21–25] Recently, CA was found as one of the best super black materials that have high light absorptivity range from ultraviolet (UV) to infrared (IR).[26,27] We studied the interaction between the * These authors contributed eq
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