Facile preparation of spherical TiO2 inverse opals with enhanced visible-light photodegradation of methylene blue

• Published in: Journal of materials science. Materials in electronics Vol. 32; no. 16; pp. 21742 - 21755
• Main Authors: Liu, Xiao-Ming, Zhong, Wan-Ling, Huang, Yong-Chun, Zhang, Gang-Sheng, Bai, Xiu-Kui, Wei, Xuan-Chen, Lei, Cai-Xia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.08.2021; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Catalytic activity; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Liquid phase deposition; Liquid phases; Materials Science; Methylene blue; Optical and Electronic Materials; Photocatalysis; Photodegradation; Photonic crystals; Silicon dioxide; Sol-gel processes; Titanium dioxide
• ISSN: 0957-4522; 1573-482X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10854-021-06694-9

In this work, the spherical TiO 2 inverse opal photonic crystals (IOPCs) have been successfully prepared through the combination of sol–gel and liquid phase deposition (LPD) method using SiO 2 spheres as the templates. The characterization results show that the spherical TiO 2 inverse opal structure can significantly increase the specific surface area and total pore volume. The photocatalytic experiments reveal that the removal rate of Methylene blue (MB) by TiO 2 with spherical inverse opal (IO) structure (TiO 2 -710) was 98% under illumination for 40 min, while the degradation rate of TiO 2 without IO structure (TiO 2 -Sol) was only 17.7%. Moreover, the TiO 2 -710 sample exhibits the highest reaction rate constant, which is about 9.1 times that of TiO 2 -Sol. The enhancement of photocatalytic activity can be attributed to the existence of the unique spherical inverse opal structure.