Fabricating waxberry-shaped N–C–TiO2 composite with excellent visible light catalytic activity

Herein, a nitrogen, carbon co-doped anatase and rutile double-phase waxberry-shaped TiO 2 composite photocatalyst is prepared with the one-step simple hydrothermal synthesis process, in which P25 was used as the precursor, and urea as the source of nitrogen and carbon. A suitable valence band position (2.52 eV) is provided by N–C–TiO 2 , with more active species (e.g. h + , e − , • OH and • O 2 ) being formed on the active catalysis surface, which is helpful to the redox reaction. Further comparison of experimental results ( E g = 3.01 eV) proved that the novel N–TiO 2 has preferable photocatalytic activity. In this study, an ingenious nitrogen- carbon co-doping structure was designed for the improvement of TiO 2 photocatalytic performance, which is much for reference of this method to other photocatalyst designs.