Abstract
Carbon spheres (CSs) have attracted great attention given their wide applications in bio-diagnostics, photonic band-gap crystals and drug delivery, etc. The morphology and size of CSs greatly affect their performances and applications. Herein, we report a green and catalyst-free hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) method to synthesize CSs with glucose as carbon precursor. The diameter of CSs can be tuned within a wide range from 450 to 40 nm by controlling the glucose concentration, reaction time and temperature. Using the obtained CSs as template, hollow TiO2 nanospheres (HTNSs) with controllable diameters are prepared via a sol-gel method. As photocatalysts for hydrogen generation, the photoactivity of the HTNSs shows strong dependence upon size, and is much higher than that of solid TiO2. With particle size decreasing, the photoactivity of the obtained HTNSs gradually increases. Without any co-catalyst, the highest photocatalytic hydrogen generation activity is obtained with HTNSs of 40 nm in diameter, which exceeds that of solid TiO2 and commercial P25 by 64 times and 3 times, respectively.
摘要
碳球(CSs)因其在生物诊断、 光子带隙晶体及药物输送等方面的广泛应用而成为该领域的研究热点, 而这些应用与碳球自身的形貌及尺寸息息相关. 在此, 我们实现了无任何催化剂及表面活性剂的情况下, 以葡萄糖为前驱体, 通过水热法成功制备形貌规整的碳球. 同时, 通过控制葡萄糖的浓度、 反应时间和温度, 实现碳球尺寸在40–450 nm的可控调节. 进一步地我们以不同粒径的碳球为模板, 通过溶胶-凝胶法合成了不同粒径的中空二氧化钛纳米球(HTNSs), 并以其为催化剂进行光催化产氢实验. 结果表明, HTNSs的光催化活性与粒径有着紧密联系, 随着粒径的减小, 光催化活性得到显著增强. 同时, 不同尺寸HTNSs的光催化活性都远高于同样方法合成的实心二氧化钛纳米颗粒, 尤其是直径为40 nm的HTNSs的产氢量, 分别达到了实心二氧化钛颗粒及商业P25的64倍和3倍.
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Acknowledgements
The work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51672210, 51323011 and 51236007), and the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province (2014KW07-02). Shen S was supported by the Foundation for the Author of National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation of China (201335), the National Program for Support of Top-notch Young Professionals and the “Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities”.
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Yubo Tan is currently a PhD student of IRCRE, State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, School of Energy & Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University. Her research interests focus on nanoparticles for photocatalytic water splitting. From Oct. 2017 to Sept. 2019, she is a visiting scholar at the University of California, Riverside, USA, under the supervision of Prof. Yadong Yin for 2 years awarded by the China Scholarship Council (CSC).
Xinjian Feng received his PhD at the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2006, and then he continued his scientific research at the University of Erlangen Nurnberg in Germany (2006–2007), Pennsylvania State University (2007–2012) and Chinese Academy of Sciences (2012–2015). In 2011, he was selected as the member in the first batch of “the Thousand Talents Plan” of the Central Organization Department. His research focuses on the designation and preparation of the electrode material and micro-nano structure; the transmission performance of electron and material in the surface and inside of electrode; the electrode materials in solar conversion and biosensing devices. So far, nearly 50 academic papers and research reviews have been published, including Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., Nano Lett., Adv. Mater., J. Am. Chem. Soc., etc. with more than 5,000 citations.
Shaohua Shen received his PhD at Xi’an Jiaotong University in 2010, and then he continued his postdoctoral at the University of California at Berkeley from November, 2011 to October, 2012. He is currently a full professor of IRCRE, the State Key Laboratory of Multiphase Flow in Power Engineering, School of Energy & Power Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University. He was the winner of the National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation, 2012. He has published more than 80 papers in Chem. Rev., Adv. Mater., Nature Photon., etc., and received more than 6,800 citations. His research interests include the synthesis of nanomaterials and development of devices for photocatalytic and photoelectrochemical solar energy conversion.
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A simple green approach to synthesis of sub-100 nm carbon spheres as template for TiO2 hollow nanospheres with enhanced photocatalytic activities
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Tan, Y., Liu, M., Wei, D. et al. A simple green approach to synthesis of sub-100 nm carbon spheres as template for TiO2 hollow nanospheres with enhanced photocatalytic activities. Sci. China Mater. 61, 869–877 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40843-017-9183-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40843-017-9183-2