The reknowned capabilities of TiO2-based materials in photocatalytic oxidation of organic pollutants and in photoelectrochemical conversion of solar energy are inherently limited by the poor quantum efficiency of titanium. Research in this area is targeting improved generation and separation of photoinduced electron-hole pairs in TiO2 in order to enhance photocatalytic activity.
In this CrystEngComm Advance Article, Mingyi Zhang and colleagues at the Northeast Normal University in Changchun, China, report the synthesis and characterisation of a series of Bi2MoO6 nanostructures grown on TiO2 nanofibers. These hierarchical heterostructures demonstrate improved photocatalytic activity due to the narrow band gap energy of Bi2MoO6 which be easily excited by visible light to induce the generation of photoelectrons and holes.
The novel synthetic route to these nanofibers combines both the electrospinning technique and the solvothermal method in order to tune the coverage density and morphology of the nanostructured Bi2MoO6. The hierarchical heterostructures exhibited a high visible light photocatalytic behaviour for the decomposition of Rhodamine B, indicating potential applications of these nanofibers in wastewater treatment.
Find out more about these Bi2MoO6/TiO2 nanofibers in this CrystEngComm Advance Article.
One-dimensional Bi2MoO6/TiO2 hierarchical heterostructures with enhanced photocatalytic activity
Mingyi Zhang, Changlu Shao, Jingbo Mu, Zhenyi Zhang, Zengcai Guo, Peng Zhang and Yichun Liu
CrystEngComm, 2012, DOI:10.1039/C1CE05974B
