Synthesis of plasmonic Ti3+ doped Au/Cl-TiO2 mesocrystals with enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity

We successfully synthesized willow leaf-like plasmonic Ti3+ doped Au/Cl-TiO2 mesocrystals by facile modified two-phase vapor hydrolysis and photoreduction methods. In this work, the as-prepared Ti3+ doped TiO2 mesocrystals showed an interesting visible light harvesting capacity and visible light photocatalytic activity for hydrogen production. The plasmonic Ti3+ doped Au/Cl-TiO2 mesocrystals also showed highly enhanced visible light absorption and visible light photocatalytic activity for hydrogen production, and the highest visible light photocatalytic activity reached 480.1 mu mol g(-1) h(-1), which was 208.70 times as high as that of P25 TiO2 and 1.59 times as high as that of Ti3+ doped TiO2 mesocrystals. Finally, the possible visible light photocatalytic mechanisms of plasmonic Ti3+ doped Au/Cl-TiO2 mesocrystals for hydrogen production were proposed.