Solvothermal synthesis and visible light absorption of anatase TiO2

•The TiO2 with enriched (001) facet was synthesized by TiB2 powders.•H2 were produced during the hydrolyzed of TiB2 in the HF solution.•H2 reduces the Ti4+ of TiO2 in situ and generates the oxygen vacancies.•The oxygen vacancies in TiO2 increased with the hydrothermal temperature raised.•The new absorption in the visible region is due to the existence of oxygen vacancy.

Oxygen-deficient anatase TiO2 sheets with dominant (001) facets are becoming a hot research topic due to their promising high activity in heterogeneous reactions. In this work, a series of (001) facets dominated TiO2 with distributed oxygen vacancies and Ti3+ was prepared by a simple hydrothermal method with the TiB2 as a precursor. The as-prepared powders were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscope (SEM), Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and UV–visible diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (UV–vis). The results show that the particle size of as-prepared TiO2 increases and its band gap narrows with the hydrothermal temperature increasing from 140 °C to 180 °C. Besides, oxygen vacancies and Ti3+ are generated during the TiB2 hydrolysis, which leads to new absorption spectrum in the visible light region. Photocatalytic test shows that sample prepared at 180 °C presents the highest degradation efficiency.