Carbonaceous–TiO2 materials: unique morphologies for photocatalytic applications

Semiconductor photocatalysts has become one of the most attractive technologies in the field of environmental remediation. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is widely concerned due to the potential applications in the degradation of organic dyes. Nonetheless, the inherent wide band gap of TiO2 has been proved to restrict the photocatalytic activation under visible light, and a variety of strategies have been attempted to develop TiO2 composite catalysts with short band gap compositions, such as carbonaceous nanomaterials. In the recent progress, the present review attaches more importance to the unique morphology and fickle structure of carbonaceous–TiO2 photocatalysts, among which there are sandwich-like structure, foam-like structure, core–shell structure, nanotube, nanorod structure, semi-wrapped structure, etc., and all of them have been demonstrated in this paper. Furthermore, reviews of the enhanced mechanisms, synthesis method and performance comparison of carbonaceous–TiO2 photocatalysts reported in the literature are also suggested and conducted. In brief, this work provides some novel insights for the preparation of TiO2 composites as photocatalysts with excellent performance and contributes to promoting their application in environmental protection issues.