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High-efficiency photocatalytic performance of Cr–SrTiO3-modified black TiO2 nanotube arrays

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Abstract

TiO2 nanotube arrays with high surface areas have grown in significance recently due to their excellent charge transport properties. However, they can only be excited by ultraviolet irradiation due to their wide band gap; this drawback has greatly limited their applicability to real-world devices. In this study, a series of heterostructured black-Cr–SrTiO3/TiO2 nanotube arrays with heterojunction structures were successfully fabricated using a hydrothermal method; this method simply involved controlling the hydrothermal reaction time used. The developed black-Cr–SrTiO3/TiO2 nanotube arrays exhibited superior charge separation and excellent visible light response performances. Furthermore, their visible light photocatalytic performance was significantly improved; this was attributed to the synergistic effect of coupling black TiO2 nanotube arrays with Cr–SrTiO3.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21406164, 21466035), the National Key Basic Research and Development Program of China (973 Program, No. 2014CB239300).

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Author notes

  1. Zhen Zhang and Wei Jing have contributed equally to this work and should be considered co-first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, People’s Republic of China

    Zhen Zhang & Xin Tan

  2. School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, People’s Republic of China

    Tao Yu & Jian Ma

  3. School of Science, Tibet University, Lhasa, 850000, Tibet, People’s Republic of China

    Xin Tan

  4. College of Resources and Environment, LinYi University, Linyi, 276000, People’s Republic of China

    Wei Jing

Authors
  1. Zhen Zhang
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  2. Wei Jing
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  3. Xin Tan
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  4. Tao Yu
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  5. Jian Ma
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Correspondence to Tao Yu.

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Zhang, Z., Jing, W., Tan, X. et al. High-efficiency photocatalytic performance of Cr–SrTiO3-modified black TiO2 nanotube arrays. J Mater Sci 53, 6170–6182 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-017-1977-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10853-017-1977-6

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