Rutile TiO2 Nanoparticles with Oxygen Vacancy for Photocatalytic Nitrogen Fixation

Limited by the relatively low specific surface area and small quantity of active sites of semiconductor photocatalysts, the photocatalytic nitrogen fixation performance remains very low, as expected. Herein, rutile titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles with large specific surface area and abundant oxygen vacancy were designed for photocatalytic nitrogen fixation. The TiO2 photocatalysts exhibit high photocatalytic performance for nitrogen fixation in the presence of methanol as the hole scavenger, with the highest ammonia generation rate of 116 mu mol.g(-1).h(-1), exceeding 6.5 times that of P25. This study provides a simple and facile method to prepare highly reactive TiO2 photocatalysts for enhanced photocatalytic nitrogen fixation performance.