Fabrication of porous nanostructured TiO2 particles by an aerosol templating method.

An aerosol templating method was applied to fabricate the spherical nanostructured TiO2 particles containing both mesopores and macropores using two kinds of colloidal mixture such as polystyrene latex (PSL) particles and TiO2 nanoparticles (P25), and PSL and a titanium hydroxybislactato (TC315). As the weight ratio of PSL/P25 increased from 0 to 1.30, morphology of the as-prepared particles changed from mesoporous particles to particles containing mesopores and macropores. As the furnace temperature decreased from 800 to 600 degrees C at the fixed process conditions, the increase of mesopore volume and specific surface area were determined. The TiO2 particles fabricated from a mixture of TC315 and PSL were composed of lots of mesopores and a few macropores. The width of UV-absorption spectra of the porous particles synthesized from two colloidal mixtures decreased a little with respect to the increase of the weight ratio. The complete decomposition of p-xylene of 97.9 ppm was accomplished within 2 h under the illumination of UV-light by all the porous particles.