The reporter recently learned from Hefei University of Technology, the school researchers successfully constructed a new type of anatase titanium dioxide surface model can achieve the visible absorption of titanium dioxide and catalytic activity significantly increased, for the development of clean energy to provide a new path. Published in the internationally renowned periodical "advanced functional materials".
Titanium dioxide has excellent photocatalytic properties and has broad application prospects in the fields of hydrogen production from photolysis water, fuel for carbon dioxide reduction and photodegradation of organic pollutants, etc. The results show that the above catalytic reactions all occur on the surface of titanium dioxide, and the common surface of titanium dioxide Of the chemical activity is low, and the absorption of visible light is not high, so how to improve the surface activity of titanium dioxide and visible light absorption efficiency of titanium dioxide photocatalytic field of research focus.
Associate professor Zhou Rulun from Hefei University of Technology, majoring in Materials Science and Engineering and a team led by Professor Zeng Xiaocheng from the University of the Nebraska Lincoln Branch used a first-principles theory to construct a new anatase titanium dioxide surface. The simulation results show that , The surface has a suitable forbidden band width, can greatly enhance the visible light absorption efficiency, and the chemical reaction activity is extremely high.At the same time, the reconstructed surface is more stable in titanium-rich environment, under low oxygen pressure and high temperature conditions preparation.
Molecular dynamics simulations show that the surface model can decompose water molecules adsorbed on the surface at room temperature, indicating that the surface has good photocatalytic ability and can be used for photocatalytic hydrogen production to obtain clean energy.
