Construction of titania-ceria nanostructured composites with tailored heterojunction for photocurrent enhancement

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• 作者：Chun-Hsien Chen ; Jay Shieh ; Hua-Yang Liao ; Jing-Jong Shyue
• 关键词：Titania ; Ceria ; Nanocomposites ; Heterojunction ; Photoelectrolysis
• 刊名：Journal of the European Ceramic Society
• 出版年：June, 2014
• 年：2014
• 卷：34
• 期：6
• 页码：1523-1535
• 全文大小：6690 K

文摘

Titania-ceria (TiO₂-CeO₂) nanostructured composites based on the design of coating the surfaces of anodized TiO₂ nanotube arrays with small band gap CeO₂ nanoparticles have been constructed and characterized to demonstrate the effectiveness of the TiO₂-CeO₂ semiconductor heterojunction in enhancing the photocurrent response of TiO₂-based photoelectrodes. The TiO₂-CeO₂ heterojunction was confirmed to possess conduction and valence band offsets (0.81 and 1.59 eV, respectively) which promote the separation of photoinduced electron-hole pairs. The photocurrent densities of the TiO₂-CeO₂ composites prepared with low annealing temperatures were about 25-40% larger than that of the anatase TiO₂ nanotube arrays. When the nanoparticle-on-nanotube architecture of the TiO₂-CeO₂ heterostructure was maintained under specific processing conditions, the benefits of having a high specific surface area, a small band gap component capable of absorbing visible light, and a favorable heterojunction were achieved together for photocurrent enhancement.