One-step and large-scale preparation of TiO2/amorphous carbon composites with excellent visible light photocatalytic properties

Poor visible light response and high electron-hole recombination efficiency of TiO2 are main problems which limit its applications. A facile method was developed to prepare reduced TiO2/amorphous carbon composites with particle sizes of about 10-20 nm, which have good visible light absorption and low band gap energy (1.37 eV). The results show that the composite prepared using 1.5 mmol ascorbic acid at 180 degrees C has good crystallinity, strong visible light absorption and enhanced catalytic activity. The degradation efficiency of the samples for rhodamine B reaches 90% after 100 min under visible light irradiation.