Rapidly and mildly transferring anatase phase of graphene-activated TiO2 to rutile with elevated Schottky barrier:Facilitating interfacial hot electron injection for Vis-NIR driven photocatalysis

Visible and even infrared(IR)light-initiated hot electrons of graphene(Gr)catalysts are a promising driven power for green,safe,and sustainable H2O2 synthesis and organic synthesis without the limitation of bandgap-dominated narrow light absorption to visible light confronted by conventional photocatalyst.However,the life time of photogenerated hot electrons is too short to be efficiently used for various photocatalytic reactions.Here,we proposed a straightforward method to prolong the lifetime of photogenerated hot electrons from graphene by tuning the Schottky barrier at Gr/rutile interface to facilitate the hot electron injection.The rational design of Gr-coated TiO2 heterojunctions with interface synergy-induced decrease in the formation energy of the rutile phase makes the phase transfer of TiO2 support proceed smoothly and rapidly via ball milling.The optimized Gr/rutile dyad could provide a H2O2 yield of 1.05 mM·g-1·h-1 under visible light irradiation(λ≥400 nm),which is 30 times of the state-of-the-art noble-metal-free titanium oxide-based photocatalyst,and even achieves a H2O2 yield of 0.39 mM·g-1·h-1 on photoexcitation by near-infrared-region light(~800 nm).