Abstract
This paper presents a novel synthesis of well characterized nanoporous materials. The development of mesoporous TiO2 with the use of crosslinked polymer network as structure and surface texture directing agent is reported in this study. Randomly cross-linked DMAEMA-50-PEGMA-50-EGDMA1 was synthesized by radical polymerisation to be used as removable scaffold. The resulting materials were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (pXRD), nitrogen adsorption, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The synthesized oxides morphology was strongly influenced by the polymer network used as removable scaffold. The modified materials exhibited a narrower pore size distribution and marginally higher specific surface area compared to the unmodified samples. The scaffold cross-linking ratio was also found to have a significant effect on the synthesized materials polymorph. The modification has a strong effect on the titania polymorph as the anatase-rutile transformation was observed only for the modified titania samples.
Highlights
Titania-based materials have rapidly attracted great attention due to important applications in photo-catalysis [1] [2] [3] [4] [5], chemical sensors [6] and solar cells [7] among many others
In regards to the polymer network used as scaffold, the 8% weight loss below 200 ̊C is attributed to the loss of residual solvent and tightly adsorbed water corresponding to the endothermic peaks below 200 ̊C as shown in the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) plot
Modified titania has been successfully synthesized with the use of the polymer network DMAEMA50-coPEGMA50-co-EGDMA1 as a removable scaffold
Summary
Titania-based materials have rapidly attracted great attention due to important applications in photo-catalysis [1] [2] [3] [4] [5], chemical sensors [6] and solar cells [7] among many others. Previous work has been conducted in the porous solids research group of the University of Cyprus, including the synthesis of porous oxides by investigating methods of improvement of these materials properties These porous metal oxide modifications include the synthesis of mixed ceria with transition metals [8] [9], mixed metal oxide phases with the use of different solvent systems [10] and the use of templates such as humic acid [11] and CTAB [12] [13]. The preparation of aligned titania nanowires was reported with the use of carbon nanotube/ hydrogel composite template [22] The use of these templates played an important role in the formation of the precipitates and improved the structural characteristics of the synthesized materials. A novel alternative methodology was implemented with the use of swellable polymer networks as removable scaffolds where the material was synthesized into the scaffolds net-like structure using the polymer network itself as both a reaction vessel and a structure directing agent
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