Photocatalytic Processes in Nanostructured Materials

The structure-property relationship of doped and undoped nanostructured TiO2 will be discussed. TiO2 is a much studied material for photocatalysis applications. Its large band gap makes it sensitive only to UV radiations. For much desired activation in the visible range, the band gap has to be tailored. Various schemes to accomplish visible light photocatalysis will be described along with the general synthesis issues, characterizations, and applications. One of the most exciting recent discovery is the effect of N doping on TiO2 to improve the optical reactivity of TiO2 in the visible region. I will describe new photocatalysis results with N-doped TiO2. An extension of this work leads into the photoelectrolysis for H generation. Some recent results on photoelectrolysis will also be presented.