We report the synthesis of Ag-ZnO hybrid plasmonic nanostructures with enhanced photocatalytic activity by a facile wet-chemical method. The structural, optical, plasmonic and photocatalytic properties of the Ag-ZnO hybrid nanostructures were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), photoluminescence (PL) an...

Following a series of recent studies that demonstrated enhanced visible-light photocatalytic activities of TiO2 by annealing in reducing atmospheres, a systematic investigation was conducted, in which TiO2 nanoparticles were annealed in various controlled atmospheres with the estimated oxygen partial pressure being varied from 10 1 to 10 25 atm and presence of other species (Ar, H2, N2, vacuum ...

A novel, miniaturized, high-efficiency photocatalytic cell, able to work in dynamic conditions, has been designed and validated in this study. Microfluidic channels were molded out of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) by means of standard soft lithography techniques, so as to work as photocatalytic cells, where the coupling of anatase titanium dioxide thin films and platinum electrodes, allows an ele...

In this research, ZnO nanowires doped with Mn2+ and Co2+ ions were synthesized through a facile and inexpensive hydrothermal approach, in which Mn2+ and Co2+ ions successfully substituted Zn2+ in the ZnO crystal lattice without changing the morphology and crystalline structure of ZnO. The atomic percentages of Mn and Co were 6.29% and 1.68%, respectively, in the doped ZnO nanowires. The photoca...

The effectiveness of photocatalytic processes is dictated largely by plasmonic materials with the capability to enhance light absorption as well as the energy conversion efficiency. Herein, we demonstrate how to improve the plasmonic photocatalytic properties of TiO2/Al nano-void arrays by overlapping the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) modes with the TiO2 band gap. The plasmonic TiO...

Reducing the recombination probability of photogenerated electrons and holes is pivotal in enhancing the photocatalytic ability of graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4). Speeding the departure of photogenerated electrons is the most commonly used method of achieving this. To the best of our knowledge, there is no report on suppressing the recombination of photogenerated electron-hole pairs by immob...

TiO₂ (anatase phase) has excellent photocatalytic performance and different methods have been reported to overcome its main limitation of high band gap energy. In this work, TiO₂-magnetically-separable nanocomposites (MAGSNC) photocatalysts with different TiO₂ loading were synthesized using a simple one-pot mechanochemical method. Photocatalysts were characterized by a number of techniques and ...

Titanium dioxide/single-walled carbon nanotube (TiO2/SWNT) composites were prepared for photocatalytic applications. The composites were characterized using UV-visible and Raman spectroscopy, zeta-potential measurements, cyclic voltammetry (CV) coupled with a photoreactor, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) coupled with energy dispersive x-ray spectros...

We investigate the effect of the thickness of the silicon nitride (SiN x ) diffusion barrier on the structural and photocatalytic efficiency of TiO2 films obtained with different processes. We show that the structural and photocatalytic efficiency of TiO2 films produced using soft chemistry (sol-gel) and physical methods (reactive sputtering) are affected differentially by the intercalating SiN...

In this paper, an efficient method to produce a ZnO/BiOI nano-heterojunction is developed by a facile solution method followed by calcination. By tuning the ratio of Zn/Bi, the morphology varies from nanoplates, flowers to nanoparticles. The heterojunction formed between ZnO and BiOI decreases the recombination rate of photogenerated carriers and enhances the photocatalytic activity of ZnO/BiOI...