Synthesis of plasmonic Ti³⁺ doped Au/Cl-TiO₂ mesocrystals with enhanced visible light photocatalytic activity

We successfully synthesized willow leaf-like plasmonic Ti³⁺ doped Au/Cl-TiO₂ mesocrystals by facile modified two-phase vapor hydrolysis and photoreduction methods. In this work, the as-prepared Ti³⁺ doped TiO₂ mesocrystals showed an interesting visible light harvesting capacity and visible light photocatalytic activity for hydrogen production. The plasmonic Ti³⁺ doped Au/Cl-TiO₂ mesocrystals also showed highly enhanced visible light absorption and visible light photocatalytic activity for hydrogen production, and the highest visible light photocatalytic activity reached 480.1 μmol g^-1 h^-1, which was 208.70 times as high as that of P25 TiO₂ and 1.59 times as high as that of Ti³⁺ doped TiO₂ mesocrystals. Finally, the possible visible light photocatalytic mechanisms of plasmonic Ti³⁺ doped Au/Cl-TiO₂ mesocrystals for hydrogen production were proposed.