Nanostructured Silica–Titania Hybrid using Dendritic Fibrous Nanosilica as a Photocatalyst

Abstract

A new method has been developed to fabricate active TiO photocatalysts by tuning the morphology of the catalyst support. A sustainable solution-phase TiO deposition on dendritic fibrous nanosilica (DFNS) protocol is developed, which is better than the complex and expensive atomic layer deposition technique. In general, catalytic activity decreases with an increased TiO loading on conventional mesoporous silica because of the loss of the surface area caused by the blocking of pores. Notably, in the case of the dendritic fibrous nanosilica KCC-1 as a support, because of its open fibrous morphology, even at the highest TiO loading, a relatively large amount of surface area remained intact. This improved the accessibility of active sites, which increased the catalytic performance of the KCC-1/TiO photocatalyst. KCC-1-supported TiO is a superior photocatalyst in terms of H generation (26.4 mmol gTiO2 h ) under UV light. This study may provide a new direction for photocatalyst development through the morphology control of the support.

Probing the Interfaces in Nanosilica‐Supported TiO2 Photocatalysts by Solid‐State NMR and In Situ FTIR

“…Ammonia assisted titanium butoxide (TBOT) functionalization protocol was used to achieve a uniform coating of TiO 2 on the fibres of DFNS . DFNS/TiO 2 nanocatalysts with Ti loadings of 2.5 mL TBOT per 0.5 g of DFNS were prepared using our reported protocol and subjected to various heat treatments to tune the crystallinity of the catalysts.…”

“…TiO 2 nanomaterials are one of the best choices as photocatalysts for water splitting, dye degradation, and organic pollutant removal as well as promising photo‐anodes in solar cells etc . Recently, our group has demonstrated how high surface‐area silica‐TiO 2 hybrids can address these problems ,. These photocatalysts were synthesized by coating TiO 2 on the dendritic fibrous nano‐silica (DFNS, also known as KCC‐1), using atomic layer deposition (ALD) and solution phase synthesis .…”

“…Recently, our group has demonstrated how high surface‐area silica‐TiO 2 hybrids can address these problems ,. These photocatalysts were synthesized by coating TiO 2 on the dendritic fibrous nano‐silica (DFNS, also known as KCC‐1), using atomic layer deposition (ALD) and solution phase synthesis . The catalysts showed enhanced photo‐catalytic activity, better than conventional MCM‐41 and SBA‐15 supported TiO 2 catalysts ,.…”

“…These photocatalysts were synthesized by coating TiO 2 on the dendritic fibrous nano‐silica (DFNS, also known as KCC‐1), using atomic layer deposition (ALD) and solution phase synthesis . The catalysts showed enhanced photo‐catalytic activity, better than conventional MCM‐41 and SBA‐15 supported TiO 2 catalysts ,. Notably, in the case of DFNS as a support, because of its open fibrous morphology,, even at the highest TiO 2 loading, a relatively large fraction of surface area remained intact.…”

Dendritic fibrous nano-silica & titania (DFNST) spheres as novel cataluminescence sensing materials for the detection of diethyl ether

“…Our team and some other groups have proposed to manufacture DFNST hybrid with DFNS as hard template by the post-graing method. 10,[27][28][29] In this work, we rst prepared DFNST nanospheres by graing TBOT onto DFNS surfaces as demonstrated in Fig. 1b.…”