Besides harvesting sunlight over a broad wavelength range as much as possible, the efficient separation of photo-generated electron–hole pairs is vital for the development of high-quality photocatalysts.
In this work, natural ilmenite is transformed into either Li4Ti5O12 microspheres or TiO2 nanowires through a series of chemical and thermal processes by the combination of metallurgy and materials science. Both of the synthesized materials demonstrate excellent electrochemical performance.