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Fabrication of Pd-TiO2 nanotube photoactive junctions via Atomic Layer Deposition for persistent pesticide pollutants degradation

journal contribution
posted on 2019-07-31, 00:00 authored by Andrea Merenda, M Weber, M Bechelany, F M Allioux, L Hyde, Lingxue KongLingxue Kong, Ludovic DumeeLudovic Dumee
The design of nano-structured heterogeneous catalytic junctions with high interface to volume ratio and discrete surface distribution is critical to promote the photoelectron activity in the catalytic degradation of organic pollutants. In this work, photocatalytic palladium‑titanium dioxide nano-junctions were fabricated via Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) of palladium nanoparticles over the surface of titanium dioxide nanotubes. The Pd catalytic interface and resulting active site density was tailored by varying the nanoparticle growth and coalescence via ALD, leading to Pd-TiO 2 junctions with distinctive morphological aspects and interface properties. The visible light response of the Pd-TiO 2 junctions was attributed to the Surface Plasmon Resonance effect and correlated to the variation of the catalyst morphology tuned by ALD. Uniform, discrete distribution of Pd nanoparticles with diameter lower than 5 nm led to high catalytic interface to deposited volume ratio. The nano-engineered Pd-TiO 2 junctions showed enhanced photocatalytic activity towards the degradation of methylene blue selected as a model contaminant and 2,4 D, with a kinetic constant 4.5 higher than as-annealed anatase TiO 2 nanotubes. The design of well-defined catalytic junctions obtainable by a scalable, accurate deposition technique such as ALD represents a promising route to develop cutting-edge photoactive devices with high performance and minimum noble-metal loading.

History

Journal

Applied surface science

Volume

483

Pagination

219 - 230

Publisher

Elsevier

Location

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

ISSN

0169-4332

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2019, Elsevier B.V.