Mesoporous one-dimensional (1D) titania (TiO2) has attracted intensive scientific interest because of its unique properties applicable to various fields such as photovoltaic cells, gas sensors, heterogeneous photo and thermal catalysis, bandgap materials, and photoelectrochromic devices due to the confinement effects and large specific surface area. Among several strategies, common fabrication method for the 1D nanomaterials is the template-based synthesis, where porous membranes such as track-etched polycarbonate (PC) or anodic alumina have been used as a template for growing the desired materials. When the precursor solution is introduced into the pores of the template, 1D nanostructure can be easily generated and its size can be controlled by the template pore sizes. For generation of porous structure within 1D nanomaterials, in our work, TiO2 precursors containing the different concentrations of surfactants are introduced into the pores of PC membrane via capillary force. The surfactant used here is polystyrene-block-poly(ethylene oxide) (PS-b-PEO), and consequently, the porous structure within the nanowires is generated by removing PS-b-PEO on calcination. Furthermore, by adding the PS colloidal particles as another template into the porous PC membrane before the introduction of TiO2 precursors into the pores of the templates, hierarchical mesoporous TiO2 nanowires can be prepared. The membrane containing colloidal particles is filled with the precursor solution including the block copolymers as structure-directing agents, and calcination removes the colloidal particles and surfactants together with the template membrane, leaving 1D TiO2 nanowires with well-defined mesopores with different sizes. Consequently, TiO2 nanowires have both the large size of pores on their surface that come from the PS colloidal particles added into the membrane and the small size of pores that result from the removal of the block copolymers added to the precursor solution during calcination. Such hierarchical mesoporous TiO?2 nanowires are expected to exhibit better performance in their various applications.

Fabrication of hierarchical mesoporous TiO<sub>2</sub> nanowires using dual templates

247th National Meeting (2014)

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Fabrication of hierarchical mesoporous TiO2 nanowires using dual templates

Fabrication of hierarchical mesoporous TiO₂ nanowires using dual templates