Red blood cell-like hollow TiO2@WO3 microspheres as highly efficient photocatalysts for degradation of organic pollutants

Red blood cell-like hollow TiO2@WO3 microspheres were employed as highly efficient photocatalysts for degradation of organic pollutants and the transfer process of charge was proposed. [Display omitted] •Novel red blood cell-like hollow TiO2@WO3 microspheres have been synthesized.•A red blood cell-like morphology with internal voids improved electron transfer and light-harvesting.•Red blood cell-like hollow TiO2@WO3 microspheres exhibited excellent photocatalytic activity. Novel red blood cell-like hollow TiO2@WO3 microspheres were prepared by a template method through etching and hydrolysis processes. The as-prepared TiO2@WO3 microspheres exhibited a special red blood cell-like morphology with internal voids and thin shells. Afterwards, the as-prepared TiO2@WO3 microspheres were annealed to form a compact interface between TiO2 and WO3, which promoted the charge transfer significantly. Compared with pure TiO2 and WO3, TiO2@WO3 microspheres showed higher photocatalytic activity for methyl orange (MO) degradation under simulated sunlight irradiation due to TiO2@WO3 microspheres with red blood cell-like hollow heterojunction structure. By using 10 % TiO2@WO3 microspheres (the molar ratio of WO3 to TiO2 was 10 %) as photocatalyst, 95 % of MO was degraded within 25 min under light illumination. Our experimental results demonstrated that red blood cell-like hollow TiO2@WO3 microspheres have great development potential as efficient photocatalysts for the degradation of organic pollutants.