Enhancement the catalytic activity of TiO2 inverse opal nanostructures through binary and ternary heterojunction

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Efficient light harvesting through titania inverse opal nanostructures (TiO 2 IOs) can be achieved by strategically engineering binary and ternary heterojunctions with various metal oxides. In this study, we developed two distinct binary heterojunctions involving titanium dioxide paired with tin oxide (TiO 2 –SnO 2 IOs) and bismuth oxide (TiO 2 –Bi 2 O 3 IOs), alongside a ternary heterojunction combining titanium dioxide, tin oxide, and bismuth oxide (TiO 2 –SnO 2 –Bi 2 O 3 IOs). These IOs were synthesized using a soft template method. We employed transient absorption spectroscopy to assess the lifetime of photogenerated carriers in the IO systems, revealing a notably long lifetime exceeding 5 ns for all samples. Our investigation into photocatalytic activity demonstrated that both TiO 2 –Bi 2 O 3 IOs and TiO 2 –SnO 2 IOs binary heterojunctions exhibited enhanced performance, displaying 20 % and 5 % greater photocatalytic activity for acetylene degradation, respectively, compared to pure TiO 2 IOs. Notably, the TiO 2 –SnO 2 –Bi 2 O 3 IOs ternary heterojunction showcased a remarkable increase in photocatalytic activity, with a 53 % improvement over TiO 2 IOs.