In Situ Synthesis of Pt/TiO₂ Nanosheets on Flexible Ti Mesh for Efficient and Cyclic Phenol Removal

TiO₂ nanostructures that feature a two-dimensional (2D) morphology have attracted extensive attention in environment processing and energy conversion fields owing to their peculiarly large surface area and superior transfer efficiency of photogenerated carriers. In this work, we proposed a hybrid approach including a plasma electrolyte oxidation (PEO) and ion exchange strategy to in situ synthesize TiO₂ nanosheets on a flexible Ti mesh substrate, in which the layered Na₂Ti₂O₅ nanosheets were fabricated as a template. The TiO₂ nanosheets are crystalline anatase phase and exhibit excellent photocatalytic activity and stability in removing phenol. With the modification of the Pt cocatalyst, the phenol degradation performance has been significantly enhanced. More importantly, the in situ grown TiO₂ nanosheets on the flexible Ti mesh provide strong substrate adhesion that enables superior photocatalytic stability for cyclic degradation of phenol. It can be expected that the synthetic strategy proposed in this work can pave a solid way toward the in situ growth of various TiO₂-based composite nanophotocatalysts with sufficient active sites and excellent photocatalytic properties, and thus, it will open up more opportunities for environment processing and energy conversion.