Predictable and controllable dual-phase interfaces in TiO2(B)/anatase nanofibers

Yimin Lei; Jie Sun; Hongwei Liu; Xuan Cheng; Fuyi Chen; Zongwen Liu

doi:10.1039/C4NR04613G

Predictable and controllable dual-phase interfaces in TiO₂(B)/anatase nanofibers†

Yimin Lei,^abc Jie Sun,^abc Hongwei Liu,^c Xuan Cheng,^d Fuyi Chen*^b and Zongwen Liu*^a

* Corresponding authors

^a School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
E-mail: zongwen.liu@sydney.edu.au

^b State Key Laboratory of Solidification Processing, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi'an 710072, China
E-mail: fuyichen@nwpu.edu.cn

^c Australian Centre for Microscopy & Microanalysis, The University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

^d School of Materials Science and Engineering, The University of New South Wales, NSW 2052, Australia

Abstract

The TiO₂(B)/anatase dual-phase nanofiber exhibits enhanced photocatalytic activity when interfaces form during phase transformation of TiO₂. To precisely control the formation of coherent interfaces between TiO₂(B) and anatase, a thorough knowledge of phase transformation particularly from TiO₂(B) to anatase (TA) is required. In our study, a crystallographic model in conjunction with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was employed to investigate the phase transformation. The coherent interface with a crystallographic orientation relationship of [001]_TB//[100]_TA, (200)_TB//(002)_TA, and (020)_TB//(020)_TA predicted by the crystallography model was also observed by TEM experimentally. In addition, two types of incoherent interfaces that may deteriorate photocatalytic activity were examined and can be eliminated via an accurate tuning of calcination. The fundamental knowledge acquired from this work, therefore, provides a new insight to synthesize more efficient dual-phase TiO₂ photocatalysts.

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Article information

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/C4NR04613G
Article type: Paper
Submitted: 11 Aug 2014
Accepted: 26 Sep 2014
First published: 29 Sep 2014

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Nanoscale, 2014,6, 14237-14243

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Predictable and controllable dual-phase interfaces in TiO₂(B)/anatase nanofibers

Y. Lei, J. Sun, H. Liu, X. Cheng, F. Chen and Z. Liu, Nanoscale, 2014, 6, 14237 DOI: 10.1039/C4NR04613G

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