A Green Approach for Preparing Doped TiO2 Single Crystals

摘要

Doped TiO2 with metal, nonmetal, and rare earth elements has shown a great potential in energy and environmental applications, but it is difficult to dope well-defined TiO2 single crystals (SCs) with {001} exposed facet due to their high crystallinity. In this work, we developed a green and general approach to prepare the {001}-exposed TiO2 SCs doped with various elements, on the basis of recycling the wasted ethylene glycol electrolyte from the anodic oxidation for TiO2 nanotube preparation. All six representative ' elements (i.e., metal, nonmetal, and rare earth types) could be successfully doped into the TiO2 SCs without breaking their single-crystalline structure and exposed high-energy facet. The electronic properties of the doped TiO2 SCs were significantly improved. All the doped TiO2 SCs exhibited a superior photoactivity under visible-light irradiation for degrading rhodamine B, a typical organic pollutant. The prepared doped TiO2 SCs have a promising potential in environmental and energy applications.