Fabrication of N doped TiO2/C nanocomposites with hierarchical porous structure and high photocatalytic activity

A facile hybrid inorganic/organic framework assisted double-templating method is used to fabricate novel N doped TiO2/C nanocomposites. The nanocomposites are flower-like in hierarchical porous structure with pores in micro-/meso-/macro-scales. The in-situ one pot mixing of the hybrid inorganic/organic framework metal source with sub-10 nm dimension and urea (nitrogen source) and sucrose (carbon source) in solution avoids the aggregation of components and guarantees the achievement of the novel morphology. The N doped TiO2/C nanocomposites present outstanding photocatalytic activity for both MB degradation and hydrogen production. The photocatalytic activity is 2.0 and 48 times of benchmark P25 under UV and visible exposure for MB degradation and the hydrogen production rates are as high as 2.832 and 0.038 mmol g−1h−1 under UV and visible light irradiation which are much better than the benchmark. [Display omitted] •N–TiO2/C with flower-like porous structure by bi-templates.•The tunable porous structure covers pores of all length scales.•N–TiO2/C showed excellence photocatalysis activity and hydrogen evolution rate.•This feasible method is a general strategy that can be extended to a broad set of metal oxides.