Water Annealing of TiO2 Nanotubes for Photocatalysis Revisited

Fu F, Cha G, Denisov N, Chen Y, Zhang Y, Schmuki P (2020)

Publication Type: Journal article

Publication year: 2020

Journal

Book Volume: 7

Pages Range: 2792-2796

Journal Issue: 13

DOI: 10.1002/celc.202000622

Abstract

Over the past years, so-called water annealing of TiO2 nanotube (NT) arrays has attracted considerable attention as a tool to enhance the nanotubes’ photocatalytic properties. The present work investigates the effect of different water-annealing treatments on TiO2 nanotubes and compares it to thermally annealed tubes. We find that the most effective water annealing is water immersion of TiO2 NT arrays at 70 °C for several days. The two main effects are i) a partial crystallization of the tubes to anatase, and ii) an etching of the tube walls that leads to a roughening of the walls and, thus, to a higher surface area. Under the best conditions, water annealing is almost as effective in providing enhanced photocatalytic AO7 degradation as a classic thermal annealing of the tubes. We, however, find that water annealed tubes – due to their only partial crystallization – do not perform well when used as photoelectrodes. For photocatalysis, most efficient is a combination of water annealing, followed by thermal annealing, which provides both a larger surface area and a high crystallinity.

Authors with CRIS profile

Involved external institutions

Soochow University, Suzhou / 苏州大学 China (CN)

How to cite

APA:

Fu, F., Cha, G., Denisov, N., Chen, Y., Zhang, Y., & Schmuki, P. (2020). Water Annealing of TiO2 Nanotubes for Photocatalysis Revisited. ChemElectroChem, 7(13), 2792-2796. https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/celc.202000622

MLA:

Fu, Fan, et al. "Water Annealing of TiO2 Nanotubes for Photocatalysis Revisited." ChemElectroChem 7.13 (2020): 2792-2796.

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