Degussa P25 is a titania catalyst with potential in solar energy storage, organic synthesis and toxic chemical destruction. Unfortunately, doping it to make it photoactive under ultraviolet makes such catalysts unstable and less effective.

Now, researchers in China have used a low-temperature vacuum treatment to generate air stable Ti³⁺ ions and oxygen vacancies in the catalyst. This allows the modified catalyst to carry out effective photo-degradation of organic pollutants and to split water under visible light irradiation.

The work could open up new avenues to active photocatalysts.

• An economic method to prepare vacuum activated photocatalysts with highphoto-activities and photosensitivities,
  Mingyang Xing, Jinlong Zhang, Feng Chen, Baozhu Tian,
  Chem. Commun. 2011, online.
  DOI: 10.1039/c1cc10537j