Incubating non-prefabricated nanocrystals in anodized nanotubes for TiO2 nano-hybrids

TiO2 nanocrystal/nanotube hybrids were presented and prepared by incubating non-prefabricated TiO2 nanocrystals in anodized TiO2 nanotubes. TiO2 nanocrystals were incubated inside the nanotubes with tuning size and aggregation morphology by means of a block copolymer-assisted evaporation induced self-assembly (EISA) process. Compared with that of the bare TiO2 nanotubes, a similar to 44% increase of the concentration of dye absorbed in the TiO2 nano-hybrids was estimated from the absorption spectra. The nanostructure hybrids increased internal surface area, and were used to optimize TiO2-based photo-electrochemical conversion. The contrast of light conversion efficiency revealed an improvement from 0.75% to 1.87% when the TiO2 nano-hybrids were used as photoanodes instead of the bare nanotube arrays. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.