Rapid solid-state metathesis route to transition-metal doped titanias

Rapid solid-state metathesis (SSM) reactions are often short-lived highly exothermic reactions that yield a molten alkali halide salt that aids in product growth and crystallization. SSM reactions may also produce kinetically stabilized structures due to the short (seconds) reaction times. This report describes the investigation of rapid SSM reactions in the synthesis of transition-metal doped titanias (M–TiO2). The dopant targeted compositions were ten mol percent and based on elemental analysis, many of the M–TiO2 samples were close to this targeted level. Based on surface analysis, some samples showed large enrichment in surface dopant content, particularly chromium and manganese doped samples. Due to the highly exothermic nature of these reactions, rutile structured TiO2 was observed in all cases. The M–TiO2 samples are visible colored and show magnetic and optical properties consistent with the dopant in an oxide environment. UV and visible photocatalytic experiments with these visibly colored rutile M–TiO2 powders showed that many of them are strongly absorbent for methylene blue dye and degrade the dye under both UV and visible light illumination. This work may open up SSM reactions as an alternate non-thermodynamic reaction strategy for dopant incorporation into a wide range of oxide and non-oxides.