Fabrication and Characteristics of Macroporous TiO2 Photocatalyst

• Published in: International Journal of Photoenergy
• Main Authors: Guiyun Yi, Baolin Xing, Jianbo Jia, Liwei Zhao, Yuanfeng Wu, Huihui Zeng, Lunjian Chen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2014-01-01
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/783531

Macroporous TiO2 photocatalyst was synthesized by a facile nanocasting method using polystyrene (PS) spherical particles as the hard template. The synthesized photocatalyst was characterized by transmission electron microscope (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), thermogravimetry-differential thermogravimetry (TG-DTG), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and N2-sorption. TEM, SEM, and XRD characterizations confirmed that the macroporous TiO2 photocatalyst is composed of anatase phase. The high specific surface area of 87.85 m2/g can be achieved according to the N2-sorption analysis. Rhodamine B (RhB) was chosen as probe molecule to evaluate the photocatalytic activity of the TiO2 catalysts. Compared with the TiO2 materials synthesized in the absence of PS spherical template, the macroporous TiO2 photocatalyst sintered at 500°C exhibits much higher activity on the degradation of RhB under the UV irradiation, which can be assigned to the well-structured macroporosity. The macroporous TiO2 material presents great potential in the fields of environmental remediation and energy conversion and storage.