Rational Construction of MOF-Derived Porous ZnTiO(3)/TiO(2) Heterostructured Photocatalysts with Remarkable Photocatalytic Performance

[Image: see text] TiO(2) has been widely used in photodegradation of pollutants, but it suffers from inferior photocatalytic performance under solar light illumination. Thus, novel porous ZnTiO(3)/TiO(2) heterostructured photocatalysts are constructed by hydrothermal and carbonization techniques using ZIF-8 as a sacrificial template. After coating with TiO(2), ZIF-8 nanocubes are selectively etched and subsequently coprecipitated with Ti ions during the hydrothermal process. Thereafter, the pores generated from carbonized ZIF-8 provide a large specific surface area and abundant active reaction sites for photocatalysis after annealing, producing stable ZnTiO(3)/TiO(2) nanocomposites. Thus, porous ZnTiO(3)/TiO(2) heterostructured photocatalysts exhibit excellent photocatalytic performance under solar light irradiation due to the boosted electron–hole separation/transfer. The kinetic constant of ZnTiO(3)/TiO(2) nanocomposites (4.66 × 10(–1) min(–1)) is almost 100 and 3.7 times higher than that of self-degradation (4.69 × 10(–3) min(–1)) and TiO(2) (1.27 × 10(–1) min(–1)), respectively. This facile strategy provides a deep insight into synthesizing heterostructured photocatalysts with high efficiency in the field of environmental remediation.