Hierarchical Honeycomb Br-, N-Codoped TiO2 with Enhanced VisibleLight Photocatalytic H2 Production

The halogen elements modification strategy of TiO(2 )encounters a bottleneck in visible-light H-2 production. Herein, we have for the first time reported a hierarchical honeycomb Br-, N-codoped anatase TiO(2 )catalyst (HM-Br,N/TiO2) with enhanced visible-light photocatalytic H-2 production. During the synthesizing process, large amounts of meso-macroporous channels and TiO(2 )nanosheets were fabricated in massive TiO(2 )automatically, constructing the hierarchical honeycomb structure with large specific surface area (464 m(2)g(-1)). cetyl trimethylammonium bromide and melamine played a key role in constructing the meso-macroporous channels. Additionally, HM-Br,N/TiO2 showed a high visible-light H(2)production rate of 2247 mu mol h(-1)g(-1), which is far more higher than single Br- or N-doped TiO2 (0 or 63 mu mol h(-1)g(-1), respectively), thereby demonstrating the excellent synergistic effects of Br and N elements in H(2 )evolution. In HM-Br,N/TiO2 catalytic system, the codoped Br-N atoms could reduce the band gap of TiO(2 )to 2.88 eV and the holes on acceptor levels (N acceptor) can passivate the electrons on donor levels (Br donor), thereby preventing charge carriers recombination significantly. Furthermore, the proposed HM-Br,N/TiO(2 )fabrication strategy had a wide range of choices for N source (e.g., melamine, urea, and dicyandiamide) and it can be applied to other TiO2 materials (e.g., P25) as well, thereby implying its great potential application in visible-light H-2 production. Finally, on the basis of experimental results, a possible photocatalytic H(2 )production mechanism for HM-Br,N/TiO2 was proposed.