Coating of Ordered Large-Pore Mesoporous Silica with TiO₂ Nanoparticles and Evaluation of Its Photocatalytic Activity

In this work, at first large pore size SiO₂ mesostructure was prepared using amphiphilic triblock copolymer (P123) as a template, tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) as Si source and hexane as micelle expander by hydrothermal procedure. Separately, a stable transparent titania sol was synthesized using titanium isopropoxide (TTIP) as titanium source. Then achieved mesoporous silica structure was stirred in the titania sol resulting in formation of a titanium dioxide anatase layer on the silica structure. The sample was characterized with wide angle X-ray diffraction, N₂ adsorption-desorption analysis, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, field-emission scanning electron microscopy, and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy maps of silicon and titanium. The photocatalytic performance of prepared composite material was evaluated using UV-vis spectroscopy as well. The prepared material showed much higher photodegradation of methyl blue (MB) than commercial P-25 which was attributed to high surface area (290 m²/g), anatase phase, small crystallite size and accessible pores.