A novel photoelectrocatalytic system for organic contaminant degradation on a TiO2 nanotube (TNT)/Ti electrode

A novel degradation system, combined with photon-efficient thin-film photocatalysis, conventional bulk-phase photocatalysis and photocarrier-efficient electrocatalysis (TBPE), was developed on a vertically ordered one-dimensional (1D) TiO2 nanotube (TNT)/Ti electrode for the purification of organics. The TBPE system possessed excellent optical, electrochemical, photoelectrochemical and photoelectrocatalytic properties as well as a high mass-transfer coefficient and interfacial activity. The combined degradation of methyl orange (MO) was optimized by varying the rotation angular velocity, applied bias and substrate concentration, and a photoelectrochemical synergetic effect of 62.2% was observed under the optimized conditions for TBPE compared to the individual electrocatalytic (EC) and photocatalytic (PC) systems. To explore the mechanisms, the combined thin-film degradation system of photon-efficient thin-film photocatalysis with photocarrier-efficient electrocatalysis (TPE), and the combined bulk-phase degradation system of conventional bulk-phase photocatalysis with photocarrier-efficient electrocatalysis (BPE), were comparatively estimated. A dramatic increase of 29.4–74.4% was observed in the MO removal efficiency via the thin-film TPE system compared to the bulk-phase BPE system. The results indicated that in the proposed TBPE system on the 1D TNT electrode, the predominant degradation occurred via the TPE system due to its excellent UV utilization efficiency and resultant interfacial photoactivity.