Mesoporous titania with TiO₂(B): Synthesis, features, and applications

The performance of TiO₂ materials in environment and energy applications strongly depends on the crystalline properties, such as crystal phase, crystallinity and crystal orientation. However, it's a great challenge to control and improve all the crystalline properties. Meanwhile, efforts have been made to improve crystalline properties of the pore walls in mesoporous TiO₂. Unfortunately, the poor crystalline properties of pore walls are inherent issues since frameworks collapse in crystallization. Mesoporous frameworks with definite crystalline properties, therefore, would be fantastic structures for TiO₂. Obviously, the difficulty is doubled. Based on the unique crystal structures and versatile phase evolution of K₂Ti₂O₅, we obtained high surface area mesoporous TiO₂ nanofiber with definite and controllable crystalline properties, including anatase-TiO₂(B) bicrystalline, high crystallinity and one-dimensional crystal orientation. The synthesized TiO₂ shows promising applications in photocatalytic H₂ evolution, water purification, photovoltaic solar-cell, Li-ion battery, and compacted catalyst support.