Synthesis and characterizations of hierarchical biomorphic titania oxide by a bio-inspired bottom-up assembly solution technique

As a representative semiconductor metal oxide, hierarchical biomorphic mesoporous TiO2 with interwoven meshwork conformation was successfully prepared using eggshell membrane (ESM) as a biotemplate by an aqueous soakage technique followed by calcination treatment. The synthesis conditions were systematically investigated by controlling the concentration, the pH value of the precursor impregnant, and so on. The nucleation, growth, and assembly into ESM-biomorphic TiO2 in our work depended more on the functions of ESM biomacromolecules as well as the processing conditions. As-prepared TiO2 meshwork exhibiting hierarchical porous structure with the pore size from 2 nm up to 4 mu m, was composed of intersectant fibers assembled by nanocrystallites at three dimensions. Based on the researches into the N-2 adsorption-desorption isothermal and corresponding BJH pore-size distribution, the biomorphic TiO2 would arose interesting applications in some fields such as photocatalysis, gas sensors, antistatic coating, dye-sensitized solar cells, etc. This mild method and the relevant ideas offer a feasible path to synthesize a new family of functional materials by integrating material science, chemistry, and biotechnology. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.