A facile approach for fabrication of TiO2 hierarchical nanostructures and their photocatalytic properties

In this paper, a novel lyophilizated evaporation-induced self-assembly (L-EISA) approach for morphology controllable TiO2 hierarchical nanostructures in pure water-based system was developed. The resulting TiO2 nanostructures were obtained by controlling the self-assembly and growth of the P123 and TiO2 sol complex. During the synthesis procedure, the aging temperature influences the self-assembled behavior of the template in the solution, the interaction between P123 and TiO2 sol particles, and the crystal growth of TiO2. At the aging temperature of 50 degrees C (P-0.5-TiO2-50), TiO2 hierarchical nanostructure composed of radical array of nanoneedle and some adhered nanocrystallines were obtained. Lyophilization was employed to retain the structure and prevent the further growth of TiO2 crystalline during the drying process. After calcination, the structures were well preserved. P-0.5-TiO2-50 possesses a relatively high surface area of similar to 210.3 m(2) g(-1) and a large average pore size of similar to 12.56 nm. With the high surface area, crystalline and specific nanostructure, P-0.5-TiO2-50 exhibits excellent photocatalytic activity on the degradation of RhB under solar-light. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.