(321j) Titanium Dioxide Nanowires With Controllable Overpotential for Oxygen Evolution Reaction
AIChE Annual Meeting
2013
2013 AIChE Annual Meeting
Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum
Nanowires: Synthesis and Modeling
Tuesday, November 5, 2013 - 2:55pm to 3:10pm
Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is one of the most widely studied semiconductors in photocatalysis because it is nontoxic, abundant, stable and photoactive. However, the wide bandgap, low electron mobility and short minority carrier diffusion length of TiO2 limit its quantum efficiency in these applications. In this work, we present a large scale flux method for growing transition-metal doped TiO2 nanowires. In this method, commercially available TiO2 nanoparticles act as both nucleation seeds and reactant supply for nanowire growth within a matrix of common salt mixtures. Furthermore, in situ dopant incorporation of various transition metals allows for the tuning of optical, electrical, and catalytic properties. With this combination of control, robustness, and scalability, the molten-salt flux scheme can provide high quality TiO2 nanowires to satisfy a broad range of application needs ranging from photovoltaics to photocatalysis. The transition-metal doped TiO2 nanowires show improved visible light absorption, better transport properties and enhanced catalytic activity for oxygen evolution reaction (OER).