Enhanced infrared-induced water oxidation by one-pot synthesized CoTi-Nanorods as highly infrared responsive photocatalyst

Infrared (IR) radiation is available and valuable energy forming more than 50% of sunlight and water oxidation is a challenge for sunlight-induced water splitting. The demand of the world for green energy production and environmental remediation is workable to formulate active IR-harvest. Herein, we introduce a one-pot route for the synthesis and its first water-splitting application of novel cobalt titanate nanorods layered double hydroxide (CTN-LDH) via chloride-based precursors under acidic conditions to grow ultra-thin nanorods (20-50 nm) by longitudinal propagation of titanium hexachloride [TiCl6](2-) intermediate. Practically, CTN-LDH alone can achieve the highest oxygen evolution (OE) rate, about 5300 mu mol g(-1)h(-1) under full light or IR-irradiations without noble metal loading. The high IR-photocatalytic activity of CTN-LDH can be attributed to its narrow bandgap (1.4 eV) and specific nanostructure that improves the active site distribution, where IR light-harvesting and transferring by/through CTN-LDH units and sharply suppresses the recombination of the photoexcited electrons/holes pairs. The experimental results show that CTN-LDH owns high structure/photocatalytic stability as a promising water splitter under IR irradiation.