Enhanced Photothermocatalytic Synergetic Activity Toward Gaseous Benzene for Mo plus C-Codoped Titanate Nanobelts

In the present paper, a simple and facile method is proposed to synthesize Mo+C-codoped titanate (H2Ti5O11 center dot 3H(2)O) nanobelts by using hydrothermal method together with sol gel technique, and various Mo-doped and Mo+C-codoped titanate nanobelts are realized by controlling the precursor's contents. It is found that the photocatalytic activity of titanate nanobelts toward gaseous benzene will be greatly enhanced by Mo+C-codoping if comparing with that of the pure titanate nanobelts, Mo-doped titanate nanobelts, and C-doped titanate nanobelts, and the optimal Mo doping content is confirmed to be 0.33 wt % for Mo/Ti ratio. The reason lies in the fact that by Mo+C-codoping (Mo/Ti ratio of 0.33 wt %, C/Ti ratio of 0.33 wt %), the band gap of titanate nanobelts will be narrowed and the allowed paths for photoexcitation will be increased with the generation of impurity energy level, which results in an obvious red-shift in their UV-vis absorption spectra and the increased utilization of the solar energy, and thus enhances their photocatalytic activity. On the basis of the above experimental results, the current photocatalytic mechanism is proposed.