Facile preparation of monodisperse, carbon doped single crystal rutile TiO₂ nanorod spheres with a large percentage of reactive (110) facet exposure for highly efficient H₂ generation

For the first time, a facile calcination method derived from the resorcinol and formaldehyde reaction was used to prepare monodisperse, carbon doped single crystal TiO₂ nanorod spheres instead of the conventional hydrothermal method. The spheres are made of single crystal TiO₂ nanorods with a large percentage (95%) of rutile (110) facets, which show an interesting hierarchical structure, favoring the improvement of photocatalytic activity. The TiO₂ nanorod spheres exhibit a higher photodegradation ability of AO 7 and phenol in comparison to commercial TiO₂ P25. In a methanol-water sacrificial reagent system in the presence of Cu²⁺, the TiO₂ nanorod spheres demonstrate strong ability to simultaneously recover Cu²⁺ and generate H₂ under UV light irradiation. Because of the comprehensive effects from its uniform exposure of highly active (110) facets, carbon doping, better light absorbing ability, larger specific surface area, and suppression of the recombination of electrons and holes, the TiO₂ nanorod spheres display a higher H₂ generation rate than most already reported semiconductor catalysts. More importantly, the TiO₂ nanorod spheres are promising for clean energy generation and contaminant elimination owing to the fact they can be facilely prepared in a large-scale manner for practical applications.