Enhanced photocatalytic H2 generation via in-situ grown CuO-decorated TiO2 nanotubes on Ti-Cu alloys: A synergistic thermo-electrochemical approach
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In the present study, we developed a thermo-electrochemical strategy to grow CuO self-decorated TiO 2 nanotubes (TiNTs) on Ti-xCu alloys (x = 0, 2, 4, 6, and 8 wt.%). The Ti-xCu metastable solid solution alloys were prepared by rapid quenching after solid solution heat treatment. Based on microstructural analyses, unlike all other samples, which consist of the α-Ti phase, the microstructure of the Ti-8Cu sample is biphasic, consisting of α-Ti and the Ti 2 Cu intermetallic compound. Electrochemical anodization of the Ti-xCu samples results in the in-situ formation of CuO nanoparticles decorating the TiO 2 nanotubes on substrates containing Cu. As the Cu concentration increases, the order and integrity of the nanotube arrays gradually decrease while the Cu concentration within the nanotubes increases; however, the Ti-6Cu sample presents a satisfactory structural order and a uniform distribution of Cu. Based on XPS analysis, it has been determined that CuO is the main species decorating the TiNTs. This results in a maximum reduction of the band gap by approximately 0.5 eV for the Ti-6Cu sample compared to the pure Ti sample (3.35 eV), leading to improved absorption of visible light. Furthermore, the CuO species extended the lifetime of charge carriers, as demonstrated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. This combination of band gap reduction and enhanced charge carrier separation in Ti-6Cu resulted in a photocatalytic H 2 production rate of 35.8 µL/cm 2 ·h, more than ten times higher than the pure Ti sample. These findings hold significant promise for developing efficient and sustainable energy production systems. • Formation of metastable Ti-6wt.%Cu alloy via a solid solution heat treatment. • Electrochemical anodization of Ti-6wt.%Cu leads to enhanced photocatalytic H 2 production. • Ti 2 Cu phase formation weakens electrochemical anodization, reducing photocatalytic activity. • CuO/TiO 2 type I heterjunction is responsible for the enhanced photocatalytic activity.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".