Fabrication of TiO<sub>2</sub>/CdS Heterostructure by Soluble Solid-State Titanium-oxo-Clusters for Fast Photocatalytic Degradation of Tetracycline
Tao Luo, Xudong Sun, Duomou Ma, Gege Wang, Fan Yang, Yong Zhang, Huang Jian, Hua Zhang, Jinhua Wang, Fumin Peng
Abstract
Dependent on the solubility of titanium-oxo-clusters, the molar ratios of Ti/Cd in the composite can be adjusted precisely. Herein, a soluble solid-state titanium-oxo-cluster is employed as a Ti raw reactant to fabricate a TiO 2 /CdS photocatalyst with TiO 2 nanoparticles isolated on the surface of CdS nanorods for highly efficient degradation of tetracycline (TC). The comparative experiment shows that the composite with the Ti/Cd molar ratio at 0.5 exhibits the best photocatalytic performance, which can degrade 95% TC with an initial concentration of 10 mg/L under 12 min visible-light irradiation. The excellent photocatalytic ability of the TiO 2 /CdS composites made of soluble titanium-oxo-clusters is superior to those of the pure CdS and TiO 2, which is attributed to not only the synergic effect of TiO 2 /CdS heterostructure on improvement of photogenerated electron–hole pairs’ separation and lifetime but also the ideal dispersion of the isolated TiO 2 nanoparticles on the surface of CdS nanorods. This work presents a facile way to achieve a highly active catalyst with controllable TiO 2 -involved heterostructure for photocatalytic degradation.