Hierarchical porous TiO2 templated from natural Artemia cyst shells for photocatalysis applications

Abstract

Novel hierarchical porous TiO₂ is successfully synthesized through a sol–gel method, using a natural cyst shell as a hard template. The morphology characterization shows that the as-prepared TiO₂ with a hierarchical porous architecture is assembled by multiple-layered porous nanosheets. The degradation of methylene blue dye in water can rapidly reach 96% with as-prepared TiO₂ after 50 min, showing an improved photocatalytic efficiency of 13% as compared to commercial TiO₂.