Ionic liquid assisted chemical strategy to TiO2 hollow nanocube assemblies with surface-fluorination and nitridation and high energy crystal facet exposure for enhanced photocatalysis.

Realization of anionic nonmetal doping and high energy crystal facet exposure in TiO2 photocatalysts has been proven to be an effective approach for significantly improving their photocatalytic performance. A facile strategy of ionic liquid assisted etching chemistry by simply hydrothermally etching hollow TiO2 spheres composed of TiO2 nanoparticles with an ionic liquid of 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium tetrafluoroborate without any other additives is developed to create highly active anatase TiO2 nanocubes and TiO2 nanocube assemblies. With this one-pot ionic liquid assisted etching process, the surface-fluorination and nitridation and high energy {001} crystal facets exposure can be readily realized simultaneously. Compared with the benchmark materials of P25 and TiO2 nanostructures with other hierarchical architectures of hollow spheres, flaky spheres, and spindles synthesized by hydrothermally etching hollow TiO2 spheres with nonionic liquid of NH4F, the TiO2 nanocubes and TiO2 nanocube assemblies used as efficient photocatalysts show super high photocatalytic activity for degradation of methylene blue, methyl orange, and rhodamine B, due to their surface-fluorination and nitridation and high energy crystal facet exposure. The ionic liquid assisted etching chemistry is facile and robust and may be a general strategy for synthesizing other metal oxides with high energy crystal facets and surface doping for improving photocatalytic activity.