Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity Of Ag Microgrid Connected Tio2 Nanocrystalline Films

One reason for the high degree of photogenerated carrier recombination was found to be the charge accumulation caused by the uneven reaction area on the photocatalyst surface. The authors connected TiO2 nanoparticles with conducting Ag microgrid. Obvious photocatalytic activity improvement (81%) over the pure TiO2 was observed, which is attributed to the electron-hole pairs separation by the metal-semiconductor contact and the large specific area of metal grid, which increased the O-2 absorption and transported the electrons to the sites needed for the deoxidize reactions. This structure lowers the electron accumulation on the particles and improves the utilization ratio of the photoexcited carriers. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.