Green Photocatalytic Oxidation of Benzyl Alcohol over Noble-Metal-Modified H₂Ti₃O₇ Nanowires

One-dimensional H2Ti3O7 nanowires (NWs) supported by Au, Ag, and Pd monometallic nanoparticles (NPs) and Au–Pd bimetallic NPs were prepared and used for photochemical benzyl alcohol oxidation. Techniques, such as XRD, TEM, XPS, N2 physisorption, and diffuse reflectance ultraviolet–visible (DRUV–vis), were used to characterize the obtained catalysts. These results showed that the Pd/H2Ti3O7 NWs catalyst under light irradiation displayed an enhanced photocatalytic performance, nearly 2.6 times higher than that for the catalyst without irradiation and about 1.5 times higher than that for Pd/TiO2(P25) with irradiation. The enhanced benzyl alcohol oxidation activity for Pd/H2Ti3O7 NWs might be due to the favorable synergetic effect between Pd and H2Ti3O7 NWs. Particularly, highly dispersed Pd NPs with about 10.2 nm on H2Ti3O7 NWs can promoted the light harvesting ability. The well-matched contact boundary between H2Ti3O7 NWs and Pd NPs might promote separation for the photoinduced electron and hole pairs. After 5 recycle utilization cycles, there was no evident decline in activity and selectivity for the Pd/H2Ti3O7 NWs catalyst, which still maintained its original structure of H2Ti3O7 NWs. The current study provides a potential application in the green and highly efficient photocatalytic synthesis of other organic compounds and other environmental applications