Facile in situ synthesis of visible light-active Pt/C−TiO2 nanoparticles for environmental remediation

The present work focuses on the facile synthesis and characterization of Pt/C−TiO2 and evaluation of its visible-light photocatalytic activities. Pt/C−TiO2 with 0.5–5.0 wt% Pt as visible light-active photocatalysts were prepared by a facile in situ synthesis approach through thermal oxidation of H2PtCl6·6H2O-impregnated TiC precursor. The carbon existing in substitutional and interstitial sites of TiO2 lattices extends the visible light absorption of TiO2 by either narrowing the bandgap directly or serving as photosensitizers. The metallic Pt nanoparticles uniformly distributed on the C−TiO2 surface further improve the photocatalytic efficiency by inhibiting the charge carrier recombination and promoting interfacial charge transfer. The enhanced photocatalytic performance was demonstrated on the destruction of gaseous toluene in air and decomposition of rhodamine B (RhB) in aqueous suspension, with the optimum loading at 1.0–2.0 wt%. The improvement was also found to outperform Ag/C−TiO2 synthesized with a similar approach, increasing its potential of being utilized for environmental remediation under visible light irradiation.