Low temperature synthesis and visible light driven photocatalytic activity of highly crystalline mesoporous TiO2 particles

Mesoporous TiO2 powder materials with a high crystallinity have been prepared by evaporation induced self assembly (EISA) process using titanium tetraisopropoxide (TTIP) and pluronic P123 surfactant (EO20PO70EO20) as titanium source and structure-directing reagent, respectively. The prepared materials were characterized by low and wide-angle X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), optical absorption, and N2 adsorption-desorption experiments. The crystallinity of the materials was controlled by varying the calcination temperature. The resulting TiO2 materials showed highly crystalline structure with uniform particle size which increases from 11.8 to 23.8 nm with increasing the calcination temperature from 400 to 600 degrees C, respectively, whereas the specific surface area decreases from 125 to 40 m2/g. TEM and XRD results revealed that the calcination temperature of 600 degrees C is the best condition to obtain highly crystalline mesoporous TiO2. The photocatalytic activity of the TiO2 mesoporous materials with different crystallinity and textural parameters has been studied in the decomposition of methylene blue (MB) dye molecules under visible light irradiation. Among the mesoporous TiO2 materials studied, the material with the highest crystallinity, prepared at 600 degrees C, showed the best photocatalytic performance in the decomposition of MB under visible light in a short time.