Asymmetrically modified titanium(IV) oxide particles having both hydrophobic and hydrophilic parts of their surfaces for liquid–liquid dual-phase photocatalytic reactions Original Research Article

Titanium(IV) oxide (TiO2)-based photocatalyst particles assembled at the phase boundary of a liquid–liquid dual-phase mixture were prepared by partial modification of the external surface of each particle with alkylsilyl groups. The average surface coverage of alkylsilyl groups was estimated by elemental analyses of carbon and ash components of the samples and floatability on aqueous ethanol solutions. Results revealed that the hydrophobicity–hydrophilicity of asymmetrically modified samples was comparable to that of samples fully covered with alkylsilyl groups. TiO2 particles asymmetrically or fully modified with alkylsilyl groups showed photocatalytic activity for benzene oxidation to produce phenol from an aerated benzene–water dual-phase mixture even without agitation, while bare TiO2 required mechanical agitation to induce the photocatalytic reaction. However, prolonged irradiation precipitated some of the surface-modified particles in the aqueous layer due to photocatalytic decomposition of surface alkylsilyl groups. The photostability was improved by employment of TiO2 particles coated with porous silica (SiO2) as a starting material. Compared with the SiO2-coated TiO2 particles fully modified with alkylsilyl groups (o-Si/Ti), the asymmetrically modified SiO2–TiO2 particles (w/o-Si/Ti) showed slightly higher photocatalytic activity for benzene oxidation. On the other hand, a notable difference between the two types of particles was observed in photocatalytic hydrogen evolution in the presence of sacrificial donors from a benzene–water mixture and from an aqueous solution under deaerated conditions; w/o-Si/Ti showed the activity more than two-fold greater than that of o-Ti/Si, presumably because of efficient contact of w/o-Si/Ti with both aqueous and organic phases compared with o-Si/Ti, which was rather difficult to contact with the aqueous phase.