| Summary: | The novelty of this work was to prepare a series of defect-rich colored TiO<sub>2</sub> nanostructures, using a peroxo solvothermal-assisted, high-pressure nitrogenation method. Among these solids, certain TiO<sub>2</sub> materials possessed a trace quantity of anatase–rutile heterojunctions, which are beneficial in obtaining high reaction rates in photocatalytic reactions. In addition, high surface area (above 100 m<sup>2</sup>/g), even when utilizing a high calcination temperature (500 °C), and absorption of light at higher wavelengths, due to the grey color of the synthesized titania, were observed as an added advantage for photocatalytic hydroxyl radical formation. In this work, we adopted a photoluminescent probe method to monitor the temporal evolution of hydroxyl radicals. As a result, promising hydroxyl radical formations were observed for all the colored samples synthesized at 400 and 500 °C, irrespective of the duration of calcination.
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