Studies on interstitial carbon doping from a Ti precursor in a hierarchical TiO2 nanostructured photoanode by a single step hydrothermal route.

Carbon doping from a Ti precursor in TiO2 synthesized by a hydrothermal method was studied. The structural, optical and morphological study of the deposited material was carried out using X-ray diffraction, UV-vis spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy characterization techniques. The elemental composition of the TiO2 deposited with different precursor concentrations was studied using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and electron dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. The amount of elemental carbon in the TiO2 matrix is found to be increased as the Ti precursor concentration is increased, which strengthens the proposed idea of carbon doping via a Ti precursor.