Photogenerated Oxygen Vacancies in Hierarchical Ag/TiO(2) Nanoflowers for Enhanced Photocatalytic Reactions

[Image: see text] Oxygen vacancy (V(o)) creation and morphology controlling make significant contributions to the electronic and structural regulation of metal oxide semiconductors, yet an investigation about convenient approaches for fabricating hierarchical catalyst with abundant oxygen vacancies still has significant challenges. Here, we report a unique method to create abundant oxygen vacancies in hierarchical Ag/TiO(2) nanoflowers during photocatalytic reaction, which is accompanied by light absorption variation and surface plasmon resonance (SPR) enhancement. Its high efficiency of photocatalytic H(2) evolution (the highest apparent quantum yield reaches 3.2% at 365 nm) and rhodamine B degradation can be considered as benefits from the synergistic effects of the well-arranged hierarchical structure, the photogenerated oxygen vacancies, and the SPR of cocatalyst Ag. This work proposes an effective strategy to optimize the synthesis of regular hierarchical structures and enriches the research on the vital function of oxygen vacancies in photocatalytic reactions.