Improving the photocatalytic H2 evolution activities of TiO2 by modulating the stabilizing ligands of the nanoscale Ti8O8-cluster precursors

Titanium-oxo clusters (TOCs) are important model complexes and potential precise single-source precursors of TiO 2 materials. We report here a series of TiO 2 samples derived from TOCs with the same wheel-like Ti 8 O 8 clustercore but different stabilizing ligands. Our results demonstrate that the ligands on TOCs not only influence the phase-transition during themolysis, but more importantly tune the photocatalytic H 2 evolution activities of the obtained TiO 2 materials. Through 500 °C calcination , the nanosized Ti 8 O 8 cluster stabilized by organic benzoate ligands gives rise to a TiO 2 sample with H 2 production rate of 611  μ mol/h/g. When the stabilizing ligands are changed to inorganic SO 4 2− , a significant improvement of H 2 evolution activity has been achieved, resulting in a 7-times higher value of 4527  μ mol/h/g. This work provides a new strategy to produce TiO 2 with enhanced and tunable photocatalytic activities from titanium-oxo cluster precursors.