Solvothermal synthesis and visible light absorption of anatase TiO2

Oxygen-deficient anatase TiO 2 sheets with dominant (001) facets are becoming a hot research topic due to their promising high activity in heterogeneous reactions . In this work, a series of (001) facets dominated TiO 2 with distributed oxygen vacancies and Ti 3+ was prepared by a simple hydrothermal method with the TiB 2 as a precursor. The as-prepared powders were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscope (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and UV–visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV–vis). The results show that the particle size of as-prepared TiO 2 increases and its band gap narrows with the hydrothermal temperature increasing from 140   °C to 180   °C. Besides, oxygen vacancies and Ti 3+ are generated during the TiB 2 hydrolysis, which leads to new absorption spectrum in the visible light region. Photocatalytic test shows that sample prepared at 180   °C presents the highest degradation efficiency.