A facile approach for fabrication of TiO2 hierarchical nanostructures and their photocatalytic properties

Abstract In this paper, a novel lyophilizated evaporation-induced self-assembly (L-EISA) approach for morphology controllable TiO 2 hierarchical nanostructures in pure water-based system was developed. The resulting TiO 2 nanostructures were obtained by controlling the self-assembly and growth of the P123 and TiO 2 sol complex. During the synthesis procedure, the aging temperature influences the self-assembled behavior of the template in the solution, the interaction between P123 and TiO 2 sol particles, and the crystal growth of TiO 2 . At the aging temperature of 50 °C (P 0.5 -TiO 2 -50), TiO 2 hierarchical nanostructure composed of radical array of nanoneedle and some adhered nanocrystallines were obtained. Lyophilization was employed to retain the structure and prevent the further growth of TiO 2 crystalline during the drying process. After calcination, the structures were well preserved. P 0.5 -TiO 2 -50 possesses a relatively high surface area of ∼210.3 m 2  g −1 and a large average pore size of ∼12.56 nm. With the high surface area, crystalline and specific nanostructure, P 0.5 -TiO 2 -50 exhibits excellent photocatalytic activity on the degradation of RhB under solar-light.