Progress in Black Titania: A New Material for Advanced Photocatalysis

Abstract

The photocatalytic activity of TiO₂ has aroused a broad range of research effort since 1972. Although TiO₂ has a very high efficiency in utilizing ultraviolet light, its overall solar activity is very limited due to its wide bandgap (≈3.0−3.2 eV). This is a bottleneck for TiO₂ to be applied in the areas ranging from visible‐light photocatalysis and photovoltaics to photo‐electrochemistry and sensors. Recently, the emergence of black TiO₂ nanomaterial has triggered world‐wide research interest, because of its substantially enhanced solar absorption and the improved photocatalytic activities. Here, a variety of synthetic strategies of black TiO₂ are outlined, and the structural and chemical features, band structures and electronic properties of the black TiO₂ nanomaterials are described in details, along with their photocatalytic performances as well as some other new applications.