Nature of Surface Oxygen Intermediates on TiO2 during Photocatalytic Splitting of Water

For the first time, utilizing reactor-based and in situ ATR-FTIR spectrscopic studies, the nature of the surface oxygen species present on pure TiO₂ during photocatalytic splitting of water have been identified and their accumulation on the titania surface is responsible for minimizing O₂ evolution and retarding H₂ evolution.