Titania and Silica Materials Derived from Chemically Dehydrated Porous Botanical Templates

Abstract

This study describes the development of a mild room-temperature chemical dehydration method that effectively removes water from fragile living botanical leaf species without collapsing or physically degrading their macrostructure. The dehydrated plant materials retain an extensive vascular and cellular structure that was subsequently used as templating surfaces for metal oxide growth. The facile room-temperature chemical dehydration process used 2,2-dimethoxypropane (DMP) in acid-catalyzed reactions with water to yield methanol and acetone. The resulting chemically dehydrated botanical materials are relatively robust and retain their intricate internal cellular and vascular structures with little reduction in physical size despite the removal of over 70% of their original mass. Dehydrated botanical templates from several different leaf species were used to produce titania and silica structures. Water reactive titanium and silicon alkoxide precursors were incorporated into the DMP dried templates through a...