Silica induced oxygen vacancies in supported mixed-phase TiO2 for photocatalytic degradation of phenol under visible light irradiation

Phenol degradation with TiO2 has attracted a great deal of interest in recent years. However, its low efficiency under solar radiation and difficulty of recovery limit the potential use. Here we report a novel "silica support inducing oxygen vacancies" strategy to prepare visible-light-active TiO2 with mixed-phase, which show excellent photocatalytic performance for phenol degradation under visible light. Hydroxyl and superoxide radicals were the main oxidative species responsible for the degradation of phenol. Our work demonstrates that coupling with oxygen vacancy creation and silica nanosheets (SNSs) immobilization for TiO2 is a new approach to obtained efficient visible-light photocatalysts for practical application. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.