Alcohol solvothermal reduction for commercial P25 to harvest weak visible light and fabrication of the resulting floating photocatalytic spheres

In this study, to fabricate stable floating photocatalytic spheres, facile alcohol solvothermal reduction was first employed to modify commercial TiO(2) (P25) photocatalysts to harvest visible light and improve their performances for photodegrading phenol in seawater exciting by visible light. Floating photocatalytic spheres were then prepared by loading reduced P25 photocatalysts on inner and outer surfaces of acrylic hollow spheres. The structural characterizations showed that reduction of P25 introduced disorder–crystalline shell–core structures with present Ti(3+) in reduced P25 photocatalysts. These features facilitated visible light response and phenol degradation in seawater under visible light irradiation. As reduction time or temperature of alcohol solvothermal process rose, more Ti(3+) and shell–core structures were introduced into reduced P25, resulting in higher performances towards phenol degradation in seawater. However, extended periods of time and elevated temperatures decreased disordered layer of reduced P25, deteriorating the photocatalytic performances. Thanks to good light transmission of the hollow spheres and the high performance of the reduced P25, the photocatalytic performances of spheres loaded with reduced P25 could effectively degrade phenol in seawater even at low concentrations. The removal rate of phenol by floating spheres reached more than 95% after 8 h. In addition, the floating spheres displayed good stability and convenient reusability after six repeated photocatalytic degradation for phenol in seawater, promising features for future treatment of organic pollutants in oceans.