Polymeric carbon nitride coated Nb-TiO2 nanorod arrays with enhanced photoelectrocatalytic activity under visible light irradiation

In this work, the visible light responsive photoelectrocatalytic performance of titanium dioxide nanorod arrays (TiO2-NRs) were improved by the synergetic effect of heterojunction construction and doping strategy. First of all, the conductivity of TiO2-NRs was improved by niobium doping. The photocurrent of doped sample was 1.39 times larger than that of the pristine TiO2-NRs under UV light. On this basis, g-C3N4 was coated onto the niobium doped TiO2-NRs and induced to significant enhanced photoelectrochemical performance under visible light irradiation. The optimal Nb-TiO2/g-C3N4 photoanode generated a photocurrent of 9.33 mA, which was about 19.04 times as that of the Nb-TiO2 nanorod.