文献类型：期刊文献

英文题名：High-quality spinel LiCoTiO4 single crystals with co-exposed {111} and {110} facets: flux growth, formation mechanism, magnetic behavior and their application in photocatalysis

作者：Wang, Qiang[1];Guo, Qingjun[1];Hu, Yuanhao[1];Li, Bing[1]

机构：[1]East China Univ Sci & Technol, Sch Mech & Power Engn, 130 Meilong Rd, Shanghai 200237, Peoples R China

年份：2016

卷号：18

期号：36

起止页码：6926

外文期刊名：CRYSTENGCOMM

收录：;WOS:【SCI-EXPANDED(收录号:WOS:000384235800021)】；

基金：This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 51274102).

语种：英文

摘要：Novel spinel LiCoTiO4 single crystals with co-exposed {111} and {110} facets were grown for the first time using a facile LiCl flux method. The obtained cubic-phase LiCoTiO4 crystals exhibit high crystallinity and regular octahedron-like geometric morphology. In this method, LiCl was used not only as an effective lithium source without any additives but also as the optimum molten medium compared with LiCl-NaCl and LiCl-KCl eutectic mixtures. The formation mechanism responsible for the flux-grown spinel LiCoTiO4 crystals with co-exposed {111} and {110} facets was also proposed. Moreover, the spinel LiCoTiO4 crystals showed a weak ferrimagnetic behavior with some antiferromagnetic effects. Photocatalytic tests revealed that the pure LiCoTiO4 sample had a relatively low photocatalytic activity although it had a relatively narrow band-gap energy (1.58 eV) corresponding well to the broad visible spectrum. However, the spinel LiCoTiO4 crystal could serve as an efficient visible-light sensitizer, and when coupled with graphitic carbon nitride (g-C3N4) nanosheets, the novel LiCoTiO4/g-C3N4 composites exhibited higher activity than pure g-C3N4 for the photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants under simulated sunlight. A possible mechanism for the improved photocatalytic performance was also proposed. Overall, our present work opens a new approach to fabricating other lithiated transition-metal oxide spinel crystals for broad industrial applications.