Synthesis and characterisation of mesoporous silica foam based titanate nanostructure
composites
Dorina Dobó1,2, Tamás Somogyi1, Dr. Ákos Kukovecz1,2, Dr. Zoltán Kónya1,3
1 University of Szeged, Department of Applied and Environmental Chemistry, Szeged
2 MTA-SZTE "Lendület" Porous Nanocomposites Research Group, Szeged
3 MTA-SZTE Reaction Kinetics and Surface Chemistry Research Group, Szeged
Nowadays, several materials science studies are focused on nanoscaled materials due
to their unique properties (electronic, thermal, mechanical, magnetic, etc.) related to their tiny
size which makes these materials different from their bulk counterparts.
Titanate nanotubes were produced first by Kasugaet al
in 1999 from titanium dioxide (TiO2). Later, several different
preparation techniques have been developed and titanate
nanowires (TiONW) were also successfully synthesized by
Horvath et al.
Synthesis, characterisation and application of different
porous solids have long been popular in the area of material
science. Porous materials have high specific surface area thus
they can be used as adsorbents, shape selective
Fig.1. TEM image of mesocellular
silica foam based TiONW
catalysts and support for catalyst. Porous materials can
be divided in three groups in function of their pore
size: microporous- have a pore diameter (PD) less than
2 nm; mesoporous PD 2-50 nm, and the macroporous
materials PD>50 nm. Macrocellular mesoporous
silicate foams were prepared by a modified sol-gel
route based on the technique suggested by Bagshaw.
In this work, we have synthesized mesoporous
Fig.2. SEM image of mesocellular silica
foam based TiONW
silica - TiONW composites. Our aim was to reproducibly synthesise layered nanocomposites
that have a high specific surface area and small pore diameter. The as-prepared materials were
characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy
(SEM), optical microscopy, X-ray diffractometry (XRD), thermogravimetry (TG/DTA) and
specific surface areas were determined from the N2 adsorption isotherms (BET).