Crystal Facet Engineering and Hydrogen Spillover-Assisted Synthesis of Defective Pt/TiO Nanorods with Enhanced Visible Light-Driven Photocatalytic Activity.

Hydrogen spillover can assist the introduction of defects such as Ti and concomitant oxygen vacancies (V) in a TiO crystal, thereby inducing a new level below the conduction band to improve the conductivity of photogenerated electrons and the visible light absorption property of TiO. Meanwhile, crystal facet engineering offers a promising approach to achieve improved activity by influencing the recombination step of the photogenerated electrons and holes. In this study, with the aim of achieving enhanced visible light-driven photocatalytic activity, rutile TiO nanorods with different aspect ratios were synthesized by crystal facet engineering, and Pt-deposited TiO nanorods (Pt/TNR) were then obtained via reduction treatment assisted by hydrogen spillover. The reduction treatment at 200 °C induced the formation of surface Ti exclusively, whereas surface Ti and V were formed by performing the reduction at 600 °C. The Pt/TNR with a higher aspect ratio reduced at 200 °C exhibited the highest activity in photocatalytic H production under visible light irradiation owing to the synergistic effect of the introduction of Ti defects and the spatial charge carrier separation induced by crystal facet engineering.