Physicochemical and photocatalytic activities of self-assembling TiO2 nanoparticles on nanocarbons surface

TiO2 nanoparticles were self-assembled on three different dimensional nanocarbon (SWCNT, C60 and graphene) surfaces by a uniform thermal reaction. The effective anchoring of TiO2 nanoparticles on the nanocarbon surfaces was characterized by FT–IR, XRD, XPS, TEM, Raman spectroscopy, PL and UV–Vis. By investigating the effect of different carbon nanostructures on TiO2 photocatalyst system, we found that the enhancing photocatalytic activities of nanocarbon/TiO2 (NT) nanocomposites have still related to great adsorbability and effective charge transfer by nanocarbon introduced, however, no more insights can be provided for peculiar properties on different nanostructures, although graphene by itself has an excellent structure and morphology.