Photocatalysis is a "green" technology for the treatment of all kinds of contaminants, especially for the removal of organic contaminants with solar energy, [1] which mainly includes oxidative decomposition of the volatile organic compounds (VOC) and purification of waste water. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] Photocatalysis has many advantages over other treatment methods, for instance, the use of the environmentally friendly oxidant O 2 , the reaction is performed at room temperature, and oxidation of the organics compounds, even at low concentrations. [3,5] To date, TiO 2 has undoubtedly proven to be the most excellent photocatalyst for the oxidative decomposition of many organic compounds under UV irradiation. [4][5][6] 8] However, the relatively wide band gap of 3.2 eV limits further application of the material in the visible-light region (l > 400 nm). [7] In view of the efficient utilization of visible light, the largest proportion of the solar spectrum and artificial light sources, the development of a photocatalyst with high activity under a wide range of visible-light irradiation is indispensable.
There are two ways to exploit the photocatalysts responsive to visible-light irradiation: The first involves the modification of TiO 2 , the second is the development of a new material. The former has been largely investigated by doping or ion-implanting methods to effect photocatalysis under visible-light irradiation. [2,5,6,[9][10][11] Recent work by Asahi et al. and Kisch et al. is representative of a few successful examples. [2, 9] On the other hand, there have only been a few reports on the development of new materials.
We have reported the synthesis of several visible-lightsensitized photocatalytic materials to effect the efficient utilization of solar energy. [12] Herein, we report a novel