Cellulose Nanocrystal-Templated Synthesis of Mesoporous TiO2 with Dominantly Exposed (001) Facets for Efficient Catalysis

The mesoporous structure and high exposure of the (001) facet are of great importance to the photocatalytic performance of TiO2. In this Letter, we report using cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) as a sacrificial template to develop mesoporous TiO2 with dominantly exposed (001) facets, for which CNC can provide confined space for the controlled crystal growth of TiO2 and create mesopores after being removed. Owing to the photoluminescence up-conversion, furthermore, carbon quantum dot (C-dot) is introduced to realize visible light catalytic property of TiO2. In particular, the TiO2/C-dot composite with an extremely low content of carbon dot exhibits high catalytic performance, for which the mechanism is discussed. These results indicate such biotemplating method offers the potential to develop more mesoporous nanomaterials with desirable structures.