Significant photocatalytic enhancement in methylene blue degradation of TiO2 photocatalysts via graphene-like carbon in situ hybridization

Graphene-like carbon/TiO2 photocatalysts were prepared via a facile in situ graphitization approach. The introduction of graphene-like carbon to TiO2 effectively enhanced its photocatalytic activity. A graphene-like carbon/TiO2 photocatalyst with a monolayer carbon shell (0.468 nm) showed the highest photocatalytic activity which is about 2.5 times as high as that of pristine TiO2 (P25) under UV light irradiation. The mechanism of the enhanced photocatalytic activity is based on the synergetic effect between graphene-like carbon and TiO2. The synergetic effect caused a rapid photoinduced charge separation and decreased the possibility of recombination of electron hole pairs, which increased the number of holes participated in the photooxidation process and enhanced the photocatalytic activity. (C) 2010 Published by Elsevier B.V.