Abstract:
Enhancing the exposure ratio of high-energy 001 crystalline surfaces can effectively improve the photocatalytic activity of TiO
2, and a crystal surface control agent is usually used to expose the highenergy 001 crystalline surfaces, but the morphology of the synthesized TiO
2 is unstable and the particle size is large due to a variety of factors, so it is necessary to realize the stable synthesis of TiO
2 nanocrystals and reduce the size of the particles. In this paper, TiO
2 nanocrystals were synthesized using potassium titanate nanowires as precursors. Firstly, TiO
2 octahedral bipyramidal morphology was achieved through acid treatment, and the particle size of TiO
2 nanocrystals was reduced by decreasing the K+ content in potassium titanate nanowires. The study demonstrated that the photocatalytic activity of TiO
2-H7-0 sample was the strongest, which synthesized through acid treatment of potassium titanate nanowires for 7 hours, resulted in an 86% reduction in particle size compared to the untreated sample. Furthermore, the activity of degrading methylene blue was 7. 4 times higher than that of the original anatase TiO
2. In order to further improve the photocatalytic activity of TiO
2 nanocrystals, using(NH
4)
2CO
3 as a morphology control agent to control the exposure ratio of 001 crystalline surfaces through the variation of (NH
4)
2CO
3 concentration. The precursor without acid-treated series samples with(NH
4)
2CO
3 crystal facets modulation could effectively enhance the photocatalytic activity. The TiO
2-0. 14 synthesized at the(NH
4)
2CO
3 concentration of 0. 14 mmol/L exhibits 2. 6 times greater degradation activity than that of the original anatase TiO
2. However, the photocatalytic activity of the acid-treated for 7 h TiO
2 samples were suppressed by introducing(NH
4)
2CO
3 for crystal surface regulation, which might be caused by the lower percentage of 001 crystal surface exposure under the same(NH
4)
2CO
3 concentration, as well as the increase of the particle size with the increase in the concentration of(NH
4)
2CO
3, with the consequent decrease in the content of the oxygen vacancies. In this study, it was found that treating potassium titanate nanowire precursors with acid could synthesize octahedral bipyramidal TiO
2 nanocrystals and reduce its particle size, which could improve the photocatalytic activity of TiO
2. However, the extent of the acid treatment would impact the exposure ratio of the 001 facets and the crystallinity of the TiO
2 nanocrystals. The relationship between acid treatment and crystal facet modulation needs to be thoroughly explored to further enhance the photocatalytic activity of TiO
2 nanocrystals.