title: Gray Ta2O5 Nanowires with Greatly Enhanced Photocatalytic Performance.
abstract: Black TiO2, with enhanced solar absorption and photocatalytic activity, has gained extensive attention, inspiring us to investigate the reduction of other wide-bandgap semiconductors for improved performance. Herein, we report the preparation of gray Ta2O5 nanowires with disordered shells and abundant defects via aluminum reduction. Its water decontamination is 2.5 times faster and hydrogen production is 2.3-fold higher over pristine Ta2O5. The reduced Ta2O5 also delivers significantly enhanced photoelectrochemical performance compared with the pristine Ta2O5 nanowires, including much higher carrier concentration, easier electron-hole separation and 11 times larger photocurrent. Our results demonstrate that Ta2O5 will have great potentials in photocatalysis and solar energy utilization after proper modification.
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion and State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Shanghai 200050, P.R. China.|Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences and State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University , Beijing 100871, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Guilian
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion and State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Shanghai 200050, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Tianquan
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion and State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Shanghai 200050, P.R. China.|Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences and State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University , Beijing 100871, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Houlei
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion and State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Shanghai 200050, P.R. China.|Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences and State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University , Beijing 100871, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Wenli
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion and State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Shanghai 200050, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: CAS Key Laboratory of Materials for Energy Conversion and State Key Laboratory of High Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Shanghai 200050, P.R. China.|Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences and State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University , Beijing 100871, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Fuqiang
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Huang
keywords: PEC; Ta2O5; aluminum reduction; nanowire; photocatalysis