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In recent years, the high-efficient visible-light-driven photocatalyst has become a research focus to realize the large-scale application of semiconductor photocatalysis. Herein, a novel nanoplate-like g-C 3 N 4 /Bi 12 TiO 20 (CN/BTO) heterojunction was prepared by a facile hydrothermal-annealing method for visible-light photocatalysis, and its morphology, structure and optical property were characterized systematically. The characterization results verify that the C O bond exists between g-C 3 N 4 and BTO, thus confirming the formation of CN BTO heterojunction. Furthermore, the CN/BTO heterojunctions display much higher photocatalytic performance for Rhodamine B (RhB) degradation than pure BTO and g-C 3 N 4 under visible light irradiation. Among them, the CN/BTO-3 sample with 60 wt% of g-C 3 N 4 exhibits the highest photocatalytic activity. The excellent photocatalytic activity can be primarily attributed to the energy band match and the heterojunction that can accelerate the migration and separation of photo-generated charge carriers. This kind of nanoplate-like CN/BTO heterojunction may find potential applications in numerous fields related to environment and energy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Solving the increasing contamination from toxic heavy metal ions in wastewater is an imperative issue in photocatalysis research area. In this study, three-dimensional (3D) porous SrTiO 3 microspheres have been fabricated by a sol–gel-templating method using the agarose gel bead containing SrCO 3 granules as the template. The resultant SrTiO 3 microspheres, several tens of micrometers in diameter, exhibit a bimodal pore structure, in which the macropore about 70–150 nm in size stems from SrCO 3 granules and the mesopore about 3 nm is formed via removing the agarose fiber embedded in the composite microspheres. The porous framework of SrTiO 3 microspheres is assembled by regular single-crystalline SrTiO 3 nanocubes with an edge length of 100 ± 10 nm. The highly interconnected porous network renders numerous pathways for the rapid mass transport, strong adsorption of reactants and multi-reflection of incident light. Moreover, the as-prepared SrTiO 3 microspheres exhibit excellent photocatalytic performance for the Cr(VI) reduction under simulated sunlight, which can reduce nearly 100% Cr(VI) at pH 2 within 2 h and retain a relatively high reduction ability after six recycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One-dimensional nanotubes have attracted enormous attention due to their specific structure and excellent performance since the carbon nanotube was prepared. In this study, the open-ended SrTiO3 nanotubes (STNTs) have been fabricated for the first time via an isomorphic conversion strategy using the protonated titanate nanotubes (HTNTs) as the precursor and template under the hydrothermal treatment. The as-prepared STNTs consist of uniform and continuous multilayers, having inner and outer diameters about 8.0 and 13 nm. The STNT formation involves the exchange of Sr2+ ions with H+ ions in HTNTs and then in situ growth of cubic SrTiO3 crystals by the templating of HTNT frameworks. It is found that the diffusion process of Sr2+ ions plays a critical role in controlling the nanotube morphology of SrTiO3 crystals. In addition, the SrTiO3 nanotubes exhibit high photocatalytic activity for the Cr(VI) reduction, which can reduce nearly 100% Cr(VI) within 6 h under simulated sunlight irradiation. The current strategy may be broadly applicable for fabricating the nanotubes from raw materials without 2D layered nanostructure.ᅟ [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]