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 (TiO 2 ) is widely concerned due to the potential applications in the degradation of organic dyes. Nonetheless, the inherent wide band gap of TiO 2 has been proved to restrict the photocatalytic activation under visible light, and a variety of strategies have been attempted to develop TiO 2 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–TiO 2 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–TiO 2 photocatalysts reported in the literature are also suggested and conducted. In brief, this work provides some novel insights for the preparation of TiO 2 composites as photocatalysts with excellent performance and contributes to promoting their application in environmental protection issues.