Mesoporous titania with TiO 2(B): Synthesis, features, and applications

Abstract

The performance of TiO 2 materials in environment and energy applications strongly depends on the crystalline properties, such as crystal phase, crystallinity and crystal orientation. However, it's a great challenge to control and improve all the crystalline properties. Meanwhile, efforts have been made to improve crystalline properties of the pore walls in mesoporous TiO 2. Unfortunately, the poor crystalline properties of pore walls are inherent issues since frameworks collapse in crystallization. Mesoporous frameworks with definite crystalline properties, therefore, would be fantastic structures for TiO 2. Obviously, the difficulty is doubled. Based on the unique crystal structures and versatile phase evolution of K 2Ti 2O 5, we obtained high surface area mesoporous TiO 2 nanofiber with definite and controllable crystalline properties, including anatase-TiO 2(B) bicrystalline, high crystallinity and one-dimensional crystal orientation. The synthesized TiO 2 shows promising applications in photocatalytic H 2 evolution, water purification, photovoltaic solar-cell, Li-ion battery, and compacted catalyst support.