Solvothermal synthesis of single-crystalline TiO _2 nanowires and their photocatalytic activity

摘要

Large-scale TiO _2 nanowires were synthesized by simple and low cost solvothermal method and their photocatalytic activity was investigated. The nanowires had a single-crystalline structure and grew along the 001 zone-axis rutile phase. Using TiCl _4 precursor, the TiO _2 nanowires were formed with the low density, showed no visible light photocatalytic activity due to its large bandgap energy. Compared to the TiO _2 nanowires grown using TiCl _4 precursor, the well-aligned TiO _2 nanowires grown using the mixed precursors of TiCl _4 and Ti(OC _4H _9) _4 exhibited the higher density and the narrower bandgap energy which appeared to be the main reasons for observing the significantly enhanced photocatalytic activity under both UV and visible light irradiation.