Fabrication of highly ordered mesoporous titania via micelle fusion-aggregation assembly route by synergistic interactions among titanium precursor, block copolymer templates and solvent

Abstract

Mesoporous titania has gained increasing interest because of its outstanding properties and promising applications in a wide range of fields. Herein, highly ordered mesoporous titania with a hexagonal mesostructure has successfully been synthesized via the solvent evaporation induced micelle fusion–aggregation assembly method by using polystyrene-b-poly(2-vinyl pyridine) (PS-b-P2VP) diblock copolymer as a template, titanium citrate (TIC) as a precursor and a mixture of pyridine and ethanol as the solvent. It is worth noting that addition of pyridine to the system can generate the synergistic interactions among titanium precursor, block copolymer templates and solvent and give the PS-b-P2VP/TIC composite micelles enough time to assemble into the ordered structures during the evaporation-induced self-assembly (EISA) process. The prepared highly ordered mesoporous TiO2 samples were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS), UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectrophotometry and N2 adsorption analysis etc. By using the highly ordered mesoporous titania as photocatalysts in degradation of methylene blue (MB) under visible light irradiation, a high photocatalytic performance can be achieved and enhanced via further doping, which show that the highly ordered mesoporous titania have a potential application in wastewater treatment.