Sepiolite fiber reinforced TiO2/SiO2 composite aerogel based on CTAB "template" effect

TiO2/SiO2 composite aerogel was prepared by sol-gel method with atmospheric pressure drying. However, the aerogel suffered from poor structural strength, and in most cases, they lost their shape under thermal stress. Herein, a novel strategy that improved the structure chunkiness and photocatalytic activity of aerogel was proposed. The formation process of sepiolite fiber-reinforced TiO2/SiO2 composite aerogel explored effect of hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as a "template" on the physicochemical properties of aerogel and the toughened mechanism of sepiolite fiber in gel network. The synergistic effect of CTAB, sepiolite fiber and TiO2/SiO2 composite aerogel is conducive to optimizing the structure of aerogel and improving the photocatalytic degradation efficiency. The results showed that sepiolite fiber-reinforced TiO2/SiO2 composite aerogel not only had good chunk formation, but also enhanced the photocatalytic activity of rhodamine B (Rh B) solution by three times under ultraviolet (UV) irradiation.