Organic pollutants photodegradation increment with use of TiO2 nanotubes decorated with transition metals after pulsed laser treatment

Among various titanium(IV) oxide (TiO2, titania) structures, 1D nanotubes (TiO2 NTs) produced during the two-electrode anodization process, are extensively utilized in sensors or supercapacitors as well as in photo(electro)catalytic water splitting. However, due to wide bandgap and fast electron-hole recombination additional modifications, mostly concerned on materials surface, are required. According to the recent research, TiO2 NTs photo(electro)catalytic characteristic were markedly improved by the combination of surface decoration with transition metal nanoparticles further treated with the laser beam. Nevertheless, until recently, the photocatalytic ability of laser-treated TiO2 NTs for recalcitrant chemicals degradation were hardly described. In this regard, our work focuses on obtaining long, about 7.3 μm TiO2 NTs (L-TiO2 NTs), together with their photoactivity and physicochemical characteristics, as well as their alterations following surface modification utilizing transition metals (tungsten, chromium and nickel) together with laser treatment. Obtained L-TiO2 NTs are characterized by over 13.5 times larger BET surface area in comparison to reference spaced TiO2 NTs with approximately 2 μm length (0.61 m2 g−1 and 0.05 m2 g−1, respectively). This allowed for increasing of the materials photocatalytic activity in both UV–vis and vis light. Additionally, phenol photodegradation reached up to 34% (0.21·10−2 min−1) for tungsten-modified titania after laser annealing at 20 mJ cm2 fluence. The reaction mechanism research revealed that reduction of organic pollutants concentration was primarily caused by superoxide radical anions •O2−. Furthermore, obtained modified L-TiO2 NTs showed remarkable durability without losing their initial activity over ten photocatalytic cycles.