Fabrication of phosphorus nanostructures/TiO2 composite photocatalyst with enhancing photodegradation and hydrogen production from water under visible light

As the world faces serious environmental pollution and energy shortage, developing Vis-light-driven photocatalysts for water splitting is highly attractive in clean energy utilization. Fabricating heterostructures has been proposed to be an efficient system to enhance the photocatalytic activity . However, synthesizing heterostructures with good contact and understanding charge transfer dynamics are still unresolved issues. In this work, a facile calcination approach was used to synthesize red phosphorus (RP) nanostructures/TiO 2 heterostructured composites. The RP nanostructures were directly grown on the TiO 2 nanoparticles with an intimate surface contact. By adjusting the molar ratio of amorphous RP to TiO 2 and the synthesizing temperature, thin nanorod-like RP nanostructures with a large exposed surface and a good surface contacting with TiO 2 were obtained. The synergetic effect of heterostructured RP/TiO 2 composites leads to an enhanced charge separation and transfer, and a better utilization of visible-light. As expected, the RP/TiO 2 -700 °C composites exhibit good photocatalytic activity of degrading RhB and the optimal H 2 evolution rate. This work not only provides a method to prepare earth abundant elemental phosphorus well-contacted heterostructures, expand the well-known UV-active TiO 2 photocatalyst to visible active, but also deepens understanding of charge transfer dynamics in heterostructured photocatalyst.