Charge Transfer Evidence in a Visible light Photo-Active BiOI-BiOBr/TiO2 Ternary Nanocomposite.

Gavaskar S¹, RAGESHNATH RADHAKRISHNAN^1*, Valmiki B. Koli¹, Shyue-Chu Ke*¹

¹physics, National dong hwa university, Hualien, Taiwan

* Presenter:RAGESHNATH RADHAKRISHNAN, email:ragesh.nath6@gmail.com

Electron transfer is crucial in heterogeneous catalysis, especially in photoactive materials. Understanding the mechanism of electron transfer is of paramount importance. On the other hand, the fabrication of hybrid nanocomposite materials to enhance catalytic activity and stability are still a great challenge. Here, we investigate a direct vectorial charge transfer in BiOI-BiOBr/TiO2 ternary nanocomposite, resulting in the appearance of Ti3+ in the mid-energy state. We exclusively observe the excitation and charge transfer of photogenerated electrons between (BiOI-BiOBr) nanostructure and anatase TiO2 with the help of electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy under visible light irradiation. A probable photocatalytic reaction mechanism is proposed. The congruent idea of this research is to correlate the direct charge transfer between binary to TiO2 with the irradiation of visible light and the future development of nanocomposite-based materials for energy-based applications.

Keywords: Photocatalysis, Ternary nanocomposites, Charge transfer mechanism , Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR)