Surface enrichment promotes the decomposition of benzene from air

Abstract

The low generation rate and short lifetime of reactive oxidation radicals such as ˙OH strictly limit the photocatalytic degradation of benzene in air. Here, we adopt copper as a dopant to adjust the absorption of moisture (H₂O) to facilitate ˙OH radical production and provide more sites for enriching benzene near the surface of the TiO₂ photocatalyst. The localized aggregation of benzene can kinetically promote degradation. Besides, this method can also effectively save the ˙OH radicals from auto-oxidation by shortening the travel distance to react with benzene molecules, which further promotes target collision for realizing efficient detoxication.