Importance of the Relationship between Surface Phases and Photocatalytic Activity of TiO2†
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC, Grant No. 20673112), the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant Nos. 2003CB615806 and 2003CB214504), and the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. DICP K2006E2). We thank Fengtao Fan for help with the illustrations and Zili Wu for discussions.
Graphical Abstract
The junction boosts the function: With a combination of surface-sensitive techniques, the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 was found to be directly related to the surface-phase structure, and can be greatly enhanced when anatase TiO2 nanoparticles are highly dispersed on the surface of rutile TiO2 to form anatase–rutile surface-phase junctions (see picture for calcination progression).