Graphene oxide-assisted synthesis and photocatalytic hydrogen production of mix-phase titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanosheets

Abstract

Novel mix-phase TiO₂ nanosheets were successfully synthesized by a facile sol–gel method using graphene oxide (GO) as the sacrifice template for the first time. The SEM, TEM and AFM images revealed that the thickness of mix-phase TiO₂ nanosheets was ca. 66 nm, and the TiO₂ nanosheets were in a polycrystalline phase and made up of nanoparticles with the diameters of 15–25 nm. In addition, we observed that the proportion of rutile and anatase changed with the amount of tetrabutyltitanate (TBT). The results showed that the sample with 4 mL tetrabutyltitanate (TBT-4) exhibited the highest hydrogen production rate (339 μmol h⁻¹) in all samples, which was 47% higher compared to the bulk sample. It was attributed mainly to the surface phase junction of anatase and rutile and the special morphology of the samples.