CTAB-assisted sol-microwave method for fast synthesis of mesoporous TiO2 photocatalysts for photocatalytic conversion of glucose to value-added sugars

Abstract

Fabrication technique is an important factor for development of catalysts. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is one of efficient photocatalysts. In this work, we firstly report the fabrication of TiO2 nanoparticles by sol-microwave method with cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) surfactant. Absence of surfactant, microwave treatment significantly reduced the cluster sizes of TiO2, but high aggregations of TiO2 particles were observed. CTAB has great impact on morphology, cluster size and mesoporous structure of TiO2. Therefore, surface area of TiO2 synthesized by sol-microwave method with 0.108M CTAB increased from 15.97 to 37.60m2/g. Photocatalytic activity of TiO2 was tested via the glucose conversion to produce value-added chemicals (gluconic acid, xylitol, arabinose and formic acid). It was found that surface area, mesoporous structure and pore size of TiO2 are crucial properties for glucose conversion and product distribution. From the reaction test, 0.108M CTAB/MW-TiO2 achieved the highest glucose conversion (62.28%).