Fabrication, characterisation and photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nanorods on boron doped diamond film through hydrothermal method.

In order to achieve rapid and efficient decomposition of organic pollutants, semiconductor materials with heterostructure are applied because of the effective electron hole pair separation via the interfacial junction. Among the semiconductor materials, TiO2 and boron doped diamond (BDD) with unique excellent properties are ideal building blocks to form heterojunction structure, which can be used in waste water treatment. In this work, the TiO2 nanorods (NRs) with different morphology have been deposited on BDD films with a ZnO buffer layer via hydrothermal method. It is demonstrated that the reaction temperature has a great effect on the morphology and crystallinity of the TiO2 NRs on BDD film. The crystallinity of TiO2 NRs can be improved by increasing the reaction temperature. Experimentally, it shows that the TiO2 NRs/ZnO/BDD heterojunction shows enhanced photocatalytic activity with respect to TiO2 NRs/ZnO and TiO2 NRs/BDD heterojunctions respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]