Silver chromate (Ag2CrO4) photocatalysts are prepared by microemulsion, precipitation, and hydrothermal methods, in order to investigate the effect of preparation methods on the structure and the visible-light photocatalytic activity. It is found that the photocatalytic activity of the prepared Ag2CrO4was highly dependent on the preparation methods. The sample prepared by microemulsion method e...

Photocatalysis has emerged as a promising technique owing to its valuable applications in environmental purification. With the demand of building effective photocatalyst materials, semiconductor investigation experienced a developing process from simple chemical modification to complicated morphology design. In this review, the general relationship between morphology structures and photocatalyt...

Anatase TiO2, a wide bandgap semiconductor, likely the most worldwide studied inorganic material for many practical applications, offers unequal characteristics for applications in photocatalysis and sun energy conversion. However, the lack of controllable, cost-effective methods for scalable fabrication of homogeneous thin films of anatase TiO2 at low temperatures (ie. < 100 °C) renders up-to-...

The need for novel water treatment technologies has been recently recognised as concerning contaminants (organics and pathogens) are resilient to standard technologies. Advanced oxidation processes degrade organics inactivate microorganisms via generated reactive oxygen species (ROS). Among them, heterogeneous photocatalysis may have reduced efficiency due to, fast electron-hole pair recombinat...

On integrating one-dimensional (1D) nanocrystals (nanowires) to useful devices, in this review article, we provide a background on vapor-based growth processes and how they impact device integration strategies. Successful integration of nanowires to devices and their scalability simply rely on where and how nanowires are formed, how they are interfaced to other device components and how they fu...

Doping semiconductors is an important step for their technological application. While doping bulk semiconductors can be easily achieved, incorporating dopants in semiconductor nanostructures has proven difficult. Here, we report a facile synthesis method for doping titanium-dioxide (TiO₂) nanotubes that was enabled by a new electrochemical cell design. A variety of optical, electronic and magne...

A fundamental strategy to enhance optical transmission through a continuous metallic film based on strong interference dominated by interface phase shift is developed. In a metallic film coated with a thin semiconductor film, both transmission and absorption are simultaneously enhanced as a result of dramatically reduced reflection. For a 50-nm-thick Ag film, experimental transmission enhanceme...

Ag/ZnO and Cu/ZnO coaxial nanocables were fabricated using AgNO3 or copper foil as source materials by the vapor-liquid-solid process. The coaxial nanocables consist of a crystalline metallic Ag or Cu core and a semiconductor ZnO shell. The evolution of the Ag/ZnO products having different morphologies was investigated by stopping the heating at different temperatures. The diameters of the Ag/Z...

Semiconductor photocatalysts have important applications in the fields of renewable energy and environmental remediation. Of these, TiO2 stands out as one of the most investigated compounds in contemporary material science. Because of its unique physical and chemical properties, TiO2 is extensively used in photoelectrochemical applications including photocatalysis and photovoltaics. In this Rev...

Semiconductor titanium dioxide in its basic form or doped with metals and non-metals is being extensively used wastewater treatment by photocatalysis due to versatile nature. Other numerous characteristics including environmentally friendly, non-pernicious, economical, multi-phase, highly hydrophilic, physio-chemical features, chemical stability, suitable band gap, corrosion-resistance, along l...