Titania-Clay Mineral Composites for Environmental Catalysis and Photocatalysis

Titania-based heterogeneous photocatalysis. Materials, mechanistic issues, and implications for environmental remediation*

Using hexavalent chromium [Cr(VI)] and methylene blue (MB) as model substrates, we discuss three aspects of TiO2-based heterogeneous photocatalysis. We show first that a given TiO2 sample may not be simultaneously optimal for photocatalytically driving the reduction of Cr(VI) and the oxidation of MB. We further show that a TiO2 sample that strongly adsorbs either of these substrates in the dark...

Clay Minerals and Catalysis

More than half a century ago, Irish physicist John Desmond Bernal and Swiss geochemist Victor M. Goldschmidt independently proposed that clay minerals may have played an important role in prebiotic synthesis (Bernal 1949; Goldschmidt 1952). I concur that mineral catalysis must have had a central role in prebiotic synthesis because most uncatalyzed reactions start from simple precursors like hyd...

Titania Photocatalysis beyond Recombination: A Critical Review

This short review paper shows the significance of recombination of a photoexcited electron and a hole in conduction and valence bands, respectively, of a titania photocatalyst, since recombination has not yet been fully understood and has not been evaluated adequately during the past several decades of research on heterogeneous photocatalysis.

Ytterbium stabilized ordered mesoporous titania for near-infrared photocatalysis.

An effective synthetic strategy is demonstrated for preparing highly ordered crystallized mesoporous TiO(2) by introducing rare earth in the synthesis process; the obtained product exhibits near-infrared photocatalytic activity.

Great Challenges in Catalysis and Photocatalysis