Hollow mesoporous TiO2/WO3 sphere heterojunction with high visible-light-driven photocatalytic activity

In this work, series of TiO₂/WO₃ hierarchical hollow sphere were fabricated by a simple one-pot method. XRD, SEM, TEM, XPS, and UV–vis DRS were carried out to systematically investigated the structure and properties of the samples with varying loadings of TiO₂. And their photocatalytic activity was evaluated by photodegradation of malachite green under visible light irradiation. The results demonstrated that all the as-prepared TiO₂/WO₃ microspheres showed enhanced photodegradation efficiency compared to pure WO₃ and TiO₂ under visible light irradiation. The increasement of photocatalytic performance could be attributed to the efficient charge separation across the TiO₂/WO₃ heterostructure interface and highly effective utilization of visible light. Finally, a plausible mechanism of enhanced photodegradation activity upon the TiO₂/WO₃ heterojunctions has been proposed based on experimental results.