Morphology-dependent photocatalytic activity of TiO2 crystals

Abstract

TiO₂ crystals with different morphologies were successfully synthesized by simple hydrothermal method. All samples were carefully characterized by XRD, SEM, TEM, and BET, and the morphological effect on the photocatalytic activity of the obtained TiO₂ crystals was evaluated by degrading the pollutant molecules. The experimental results show that the TiO₂ samples with different morphologies and crystal growth habits exhibited different activities to pollutant degradation, and the core-shell sphere exhibits the best photocatalytic activity among those TiO₂ crystals with multiform morphologies. It can be concluded that a morphological effect is responsible for the photocatalytic performance, the larger BET surface area, the smaller crystallite size, the better the photocatalytic performance.