Enhanced catalytic degradation activity through quenching introduces Pd doping in TiO₂ derived from NH₂-MIL-125(Ti)

Establishing a simple and consistent strategy to adjust the photocatalyst surface to improve the photocatalytic performance is crucial but remains challenging. Herein, a photocatalyst of TiO₂-Q-Pd is obtained through one-step quenching of TiO₂ (derived from NH₂-MIL-125(Ti)) into an aqueous solution of sodium tetrachloropalladium, which displayed a significant improvement in photocatalytic activity, achieving 97 % tetracycline degradation within 60 min and 95 % mineralization at 5 h. The mineralization reaction rate (0.6321 h^-1) was 2.75 times that of the commercial TiO₂. Our findings show that quenching leads to the creation of numerous zigzag surfaces and the near-surface palladium atom doping, therefore adjusting the chemical environment of Ti, which accelerates electron-hole pair separation and transfer, and thereby improves the photocatalytic performance. This finding introduces a novel approach to activating metal oxide catalysts derived from MOFs and expands the role of quenching chemistry in catalytic processes.