Progress in Black Titania: A New Material for Advanced Photocatalysis

The photocatalytic activity of TiO 2 has aroused a broad range of research effort since 1972. Although TiO 2 has a very high efficiency in utilizing ultraviolet light, its overall solar activity is very limited due to its wide bandgap (≈3.0−3.2 eV). This is a bottleneck for TiO 2 to be applied in the areas ranging from visible‐light photocatalysis and photovoltaics to photo‐electrochemistry and sensors. Recently, the emergence of black TiO 2 nanomaterial has triggered world‐wide research interest, because of its substantially enhanced solar absorption and the improved photocatalytic activities. Here, a variety of synthetic strategies of black TiO 2 are outlined, and the structural and chemical features, band structures and electronic properties of the black TiO 2 nanomaterials are described in details, along with their photocatalytic performances as well as some other new applications.