Microdispersed photocatalysts based on titanium dioxide (TiO2) in the form of hollow coreshell microspheres (microcapsules) with mesoporous structure are widely demanded in modern critical technologies related to the catalysis of various chemicals, solving environmental problems, and obtaining cheap fuel. To date, a number of experimental works are known, showing that geometrical parameters of microcapsules (size, shell thickness), as well as microstructural composition (nanosized metal additives, additional inner dielectric core-the "yolk") noticeably affect their photocatalytic activity. At the same time, a valuable physical description of the optical properties of porous microcapsules has not been presented in the literature so far. Using the finite element method, we perform a full-wave simulation of the optical field inside a hollow microsphere whose shell is assembled from multiple TiO2 nanoparticles to form an irregular nanoporous structure. We give a physical explanation of the published experimental data on the optical activity of titanium-dioxide microcapsules and show that the existing theoretical models do not always give a correct interpretation of the observed empirical behaviors.
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