Hydrothermal synthesis of TiO2 nanorods: formation chemistry, growth mechanism, and tailoring of surface properties for photocatalytic activities

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is one of the best semiconductor photocatalysts with optical band gap of 3.2 eV. The optical band gap and photocatalytic properties could be further tuned by tailoring shape, size, composition, and morphology of the nanostructures. Hydrothermal synthesis methods have been applied to produce well-controlled nanostructured TiO2 materials with different morphologies and improved optoelectronic properties. Among various morphologies, one-dimensional (1D) TiO2 nanostructures are of great importance in the field of energy, environmental, and biomedical because of the directional transmission properties resulting from their 1D geometry. Particularly, TiO2 nanorods (NRs) have gained special attention because of their densely packed structure, quantum confinement effect, high aspect ratio, and large specific surface area that could specially improve the directional charge transmission efficiency. This results in the effective photogenerated charge separation and light absorption, which are really important for potential applications of TiO2-based materials for photocatalytic and other important applications. In this review, hydrothermal syntheses of TiO2 NRs including the formation chemistry and the growth mechanism of NRs under different chemical environments and effects of various synthesis parameters (pH, reaction temperature, reaction time, precursors, solvents etc.) on morphology and optoelectronic properties have been discussed. Recent developments in the hydrothermal synthesis of TiO2 NRs and tailoring of their surface properties through various modification strategies such as defect creation, doping, sensitization, surface coating, and heterojunction formation with various functional nanomaterials (plasmonic, oxide, quantum dots, graphene-based nanomaterials, etc.) have been reported to improve the photocatalytic activities. Furthermore, applications of TiO2 NRs/tailored TiO2 NRs as superior photocatalysts in degradation of organic pollutants and bacterial disinfection have been discussed with emphasis on mechanisms of action and recent advances in the fields.