In Situ Fluorine Doping of TiO2 Superstructures for Efficient Visible-Light Driven Hydrogen Generation

With the aid of breakthroughs in nanoscience and nanotechnology, it is imperative to develop metal oxide semiconductors through visible light-driven hydrogen generation. In this study, TiOF2 was incorporated as an n-type F-dopant source to TiO2 mesocrystals (TMCs) with visible-light absorption during the topotactic transformation. The crystal growth, structural change, and dynamic morphological evolution, from the initial intermediate NH4 TiOF3 to HTiOF3, TiOF2, and F-doped TMCs, were verified through in situ temperature-dependent techniques to elucidate the doping mechanism from intermediate TiOF2. The visible-light efficiencies of photocatalytic hydrogen were dependent on the contents of the dopant as compared with the pure TMC and a controled reference. Using femtosecond time-resolved diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, the charge-transfer dynamics were monitored to confirm the improvement of charge separation after doping.