Hierarchical mesoporous grape-like titania with superior recyclability and photoactivity

A novel bubbling-mediated hydrolysis approach has been developed to prepare hierarchically mesoporous titania materials with well-defined grape-like morphology in the presence of a triblock copolymer. The products exhibit superior photocatalytic performance and excellent recyclability in the photochemical degradation of phenol. The photocatalysts were characterized by using X-ray diffraction, Brunauer-Emmett-Teller, scanning electron microscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. The effects of bubbling time and calcination temperature on both physicochemical and photocatalytic properties were investigated. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.