One-step and large-scale preparation of TiO2/amorphous carbon composites with excellent visible light photocatalytic properties

Abstract

Poor visible light response and high electron–hole recombination efficiency of TiO₂ are main problems which limit its applications. A facile method was developed to prepare reduced TiO₂/amorphous carbon composites with particle sizes of about 10–20 nm, which have good visible light absorption and low band gap energy (1.37 eV). The results show that the composite prepared using 1.5 mmol ascorbic acid at 180 °C has good crystallinity, strong visible light absorption and enhanced catalytic activity. The degradation efficiency of the samples for rhodamine B reaches 90% after 100 min under visible light irradiation.