In situ synthesis of ordered mesoporous Co-doped TiO2 and its enhanced photocatalytic activity and selectivity for the reduction of CO2Electronic supplementary information (ESI) available: Additional TG/DTA, SEM images, ESR, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Tauc plots, GC-MS spectra, electronic structures, valence band XPS spectra, and Mott-Schottky plots of the samples. See DOI: 10.1039/c4ta05892e

• Main Authors: Wang, Tao, Meng, Xianguang, Liu, Guigao, Chang, Kun, Li, Peng, Kang, Qing, Liu, Lequan, Li, Mu, Ouyang, Shuxin, Ye, Jinhua
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 2050-7488; 2050-7496
• DOI: 10.1039/c4ta05892e

Ordered mesoporous cobalt-doped titanium dioxide was successfully synthesized by a multicomponent self-assembly process. The doped Co species change the construction of the conduction band and valence band of TiO 2 , leading to visible-light absorption for TiO 2 . The designed cobalt-doped titanium dioxide exhibits a higher visible light activity for the reduction of CO 2 among the commonly reported photocatalysts. In addition, the selectivity of the reduction products is improved by optimizing the energy-band configurations of cobalt-doped titanium dioxide through varying the molar ratio of Co/Ti. When the doping content of cobalt species increases to some extent, Co 3 O 4 /Co-doped TiO 2 nanocomposites with oxygen vacancies were obtained, which markedly improve the generation rate of CH 4 . The photocatalytic selectivity is improved by optimizing the energy-band configurations of Co-doped TiO 2 through varying the molar ratio of Co/Ti.