Ordered, tightly packed aryl-azide-terminated, self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) were created on gold substrates from a new disulfide precursor. These monolayers were reduced at least partially in an aqueous environment using approximately 2 nm CdS quantum dots (Qdots) as photocatalysts to give mixed monolayers of arylamine- and aryl azide-terminated species. The CdS photocatalysts were made ava...

The utilisation of sunlight as an abundant and renewable resource has motivated the development of sustainable photocatalysts that can collectively harvest visible light. However, the bottleneck in utilising the low energy photons has led to the discovery of plasmonic photocatalysts. The presence of noble metal on the plasmonic photocatalyst enables the harvesting of visible light through the u...

Neodymium enriched TiO2 anatase-brookite powders were prepared by unconventional method via using pressurized hot fluids for TiO2 crystallization and purification. The photocatalysts were tested in the CH3OH photocatalytic decomposition and they were characterized with respect to the textural (nitrogen adsorption), structural (XRD, XPS, and Raman spectroscopies), chemical (XRF), and optical (DR...

CdWO4 nanorod photocatalysts were synthesized by a hydrothermal method. CdWO4 nanorod photocatalysts showed highly efficient photocatalytic activity for the degradation of methylene blue under ultraviolet light irradiation. On the basis of the experiment results, the difference in photocatalytic activities of the samples was mainly attributed to surface area, surface hydroxyl groups and defects...

Most photocatalysts only function under illumination, while many potential applications require continuous activities in dark. Thus, novel photocatalysts should be developed, which could store part of their photoactivity in "memory" under illumination and then be active from this "memory" after the illumination is turned off for an extended period of time. Here a novel composite photocatalyst o...

Heterostructured photocatalysts were prepared to have nanostructured (ns) TiO2 shells surrounding microcrystalline (mc) cores of (Ba,Sr)TiO3. The as-prepared heterostructures were annealed between 400°C and 600°C to improve crystallinity and core-shell interfacial bonding. X-ray diffraction, electron microscopy, and gas adsorption measurements demonstrated that 50 nm thick shells composed of na...

Traditional nanosized photocatalysts usually have high photocatalytic activity but can not be efficiently recycled. Film-shaped photocatalysts on the substrates can be easily recycled, but they have low surface area and/or high production cost. To solve these problems, we report on the design and preparation of efficient and easily recyclable macroscale photocatalysts with nanostructure by usin...

Semiconductor photocatalysts have attracted increased attention due to their great potential for solving energy and environmental problems. The formation of Z-scheme photocatalytic systems that mimic natural photosynthesis is a promising strategy to improve photocatalytic activity that is superior to single component photocatalysts. The connection between photosystem I (PS I) and photosystem II...

In situ solid-state NMR methodologies have been used to investigate the photocatalytic oxidation of ethanol (CH3CH2OH) over a series of SnO2-based photocatalysts. The adsorption of ethanol on commercially available SnO2 powder was studied using both cross-polarization 13C NMR and REDOR experiments, and showed the formation of two surface ethanol species, hydrogen-bonded ethanol at surface hydro...

Photocatalytic processes are more and more widely used to remove different pollutants including microorganisms from liquid and gaseous media. However, methods for evaluating the efficiency of photocatalysts at inactivation/disintegration of microorganisms in the liquid film have limitations at predicting their efficiency for microorganism-containing aerosols. The comparison of two types of phot...