Influence of calcination temperatures on the photocatalytic activity and photo-induced hydrophilicity of wormhole-like mesoporous TiO2

Wormhole-like mesoporous nanocrystalline anatase (meso-nc-TiO2) has been synthesized by using tetrabutyl titanate as the inorganic precursor and triblock copolymer as the structure-directing agent. The obtained materials were characterized in detail by x-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, N-2 sorption, ellipsometry, measurements of the contact angle, and UV-visible spectrophotometry. The effect of calcination temperatures (the as-synthesized samples were calcined at different temperatures) on the physical parameters, photo-induced hydrophilicity, and photocatalytic activity of wormhole-like meso-nc-TiO2 was also investigated in this study.