Novel strategies to develop efficient carbon/TiO2 photocatalysts for the total mineralization of VOCs in air flows: Improved synergism between phases by mobile N-, O- and S-functional groups Pérez Poyatos, Lorena T. Pastrana Martínez, Luisa María Morales Torres, Sergio Maldonado Hodar, Francisco José This work was financially supported by projects with ref. PID2021–126579OB-C31 by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and ERDF “A way of making Europe”, ref. PCI2020–112045 funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and “European Union Next Generation EU/PRTR”, as part of the PRIMA Programme (Nano4Fresh project), and by Junta de Andalucía - Consejería de Universidad, Investigación e Innovación - Project P21_00208150. L.T.P.-P. and S.M.-T. are grateful to MICIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 and FSE “El FSE invierte en tu futuro” for the FPU predoctoral (FPU22/01255) and Ramon y Cajal (RYC-2019-026634-I) research contracts, respectively. “Unidad de Excelencia Química Aplicada a Biomedicina y Medioambiente” of the University of Granada (UEQ-UGR) is gratefully acknowledged for the technical assistance. New doped carbon/TiO2 composites were synthesized by sol–gel polycondensation of resorcinol with a heterocyclic aldehyde containing different heteroatoms (X= N, O and S), followed by impregnation with titanium(IV) isopropoxide and pyrolysis at 800 °C. Characterization techniques, such as physical adsorption of N2/CO2, EDX-mapping/SEM, XRD, XPS, ATR-FTIR and DRUV spectroscopy, were performed to determine the morphology, crystalline structure, physicochemical and optical properties of composites. The performance of composites in the photocatalytic oxidation of VOCs (ethylene) was evaluated in dynamic conditions. The influence of the material characteristics (heteroatom doping and TiO2 loading) and experimental conditions (irradiation source, presence of humidity) on the catalytic performance was analyzed. Heteroatom-doping, an increase in TiO2 loading and humidity exert negative effects on the adsorptive behavior of the composites. However, the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 phases substantially increases when being incorporated into the composites, especially on heteroatom-doped carbon supports, and also by the presence of humidity in the flow and higher TiO2 loadings. Doping the carbon support with heteroatoms enhances essentially the synergetic effect between carbon and TiO2 phases, as new Ti-O-X and Ti-X bonds are formed, reducing the crystallite size and rutile/anatase ratio, as well as the band gap from 3.0 eV for pure TiO2 to 1.9 eV for doped carbon/TiO2 composites, thus enhancing the catalytic performance. These effects become more evident with increasing the electronegativity of the dopant element (O > N > S), obtaining composites with unequal photocatalytic activity under Vis-radiation, allowing the selective ethylene oxidation to CO2 at room temperature in humid and dynamic conditions. 2025-04-28T07:19:07Z 2025-04-28T07:19:07Z 2025-03-15 journal article L. T. Pérez-Poyatos, L.M. Pastrana-Martínez, S. Morales-Torres, F.J. Maldonado-Hódar. Novel strategies to develop efficient carbon/TiO2 photocatalysts for the total mineralization of VOCs in air flows: Improved synergism between phases by mobile N-, O- and S-functional groups. Chemical Engineering Journal 508 (2025) 160986. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2025.160986 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/103816 10.1016/j.cej.2025.160986 eng info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/NextGenerationEU/PCI2020–112045 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ open access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional Elsevier