1. Design of TiO2-X nanotubes with controllable oxygen vacancy concentration and performance study of selective oxidation of benzyl alcohol.
- Author
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Hu, Chunling, Chen, Peng, Li, Qi, Wu, Keliang, Liang, Yuwei, Wu, Jianning, Liu, Jichang, Guo, Xuhong, and Liu, Zhiyong
- Subjects
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BENZYL alcohol , *ENERGY levels (Quantum mechanics) , *PHOTOCATALYSTS , *CHARGE carriers , *NANOTUBES , *BENZALDEHYDE , *ALCOHOL oxidation - Abstract
As one of the most important synthetic fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals, benzaldehyde is widely used in pharmaceuticals, dyestuffs, fragrances and pesticides. It is still a difficult challenge to promote the conversion of benzyl alcohol to benzaldehyde by photocatalysis with high selectivity and high conversion. In this paper, the content of the reactive substance ·O2− is regulated by constructing suitable oxygen vacancies in TiO2 nanotubes, thus improving the photocatalytic conversion and selectivity. Herein, we have prepared TiO2-X 1D nanotubes enriched with different concentrations of oxygen vacancies by template method, hydrolysis of tetrabutyl titanate and vacuum annealing. By constructing suitable concentrations of oxygen vacancies in the TiO2 material, we can increase its ability to adsorb oxygen to produce more ·O2− on the one hand, and help to construct defective energy levels to prevent the compounding of photogenerated charge carriers to enhance photocatalytic activity on the other. As a result, the best photocatalytic activity of TiO2-X nanotubes obtained by vacuum annealing at 300 °C was 78% for benzyl alcohol conversion and 88% for benzaldehyde production selectivity, which is 2.6 and 1.8 folds higher than that of pristine TiO2 nanoparticles. Our work may provide insights for designing efficient photocatalysts for selective oxidation of benzyl alcohols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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