Facile one-pot synthesis of defective (001)-TiO2−x/h-BN photocatalyst for environmental applications

Various factors control the photocatalyst efficiency including the lifetime of photogenerated charge carriers, photocatalyst surface energy, and light harvesting efficacy. In this study, the defective (001)-TiO 2 -x/h-BN composite was synthesized by a facile one-pot method to merge the fantastic features of the reactive metastable (001) facet and self-defects in TiO 2 anatase crystals with the 2D h-BN. Pure anatase phase of TiO 2 was obtained by the suggested preparation method, which contains ∼33 % of the exposed (001) facet. The predominancy of oxygen vacancy in TiO 2 crystals was proved experimentally and theoretically by the DFT calculations. The defects in TiO 2 along with the incorporated h-BN caused better light harvesting and longer charge lifetime. The prepared defective (001)-TiO 2 -x/h-BN was applied efficiently for NO removal with very limited release of the toxic NO 2 by-product as an environmental application. The detected oxygen vacancy in TiO 2 along with h-BN were found to play a synergistic enhancement for NO removal. However, more defects reduced the overall activity because of rapid oxidation of oxygen vacancies on surface of the photocatalyst. To sum up, the defective (001)-TiO 2 -x/h-BN composite can be considered as a promising material for environmental applications.