5. Using titanium dioxide

5.1 Photocatalysis

TiO ₂ is commonly used in photocatalysis processes, in industrial reactors, but also for electricity generation from solar energy. These applications are linked to the semiconducting nature of TiO ₂ , whose band gap is at least equivalent to the energy of photons in the ultraviolet band (gap of 3.0 eV for rutile and 3.2 eV for anatase). Figure 5 illustrates the photocatalysis process initiated by the interaction of a photon of incident light in the energy band of the semiconductor, between the valence band and the conduction...