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Brick and mortar strategy for the formation of highly crystalline mesoporous titania films from nanocrystalline building blocks

Brick and mortar strategy for the formation of highly crystalline mesoporous titania films from nanocrystalline building blocks
Brick and mortar strategy for the formation of highly crystalline mesoporous titania films from nanocrystalline building blocks

We present a novel "brick and mortar" strategy for creating highly efficient transparent TiO2 coatings for photocatalytic and photovoltaic applications. Our approach is based on the fusion of preformed titania nanocrystalline "bricks" through surfactant-templated sol - gel titania "mortar", which acts as a structure-directing matrix and as a chemical glue. The similar chemical composition of both bricks and mortar leads to a striking synergy in the interaction of crystalline and amorphous components, such that crystallization is enhanced upon thermal treatment and highly porous and highly crystalline structures are formed at very mild conditions. Coatings with a broad variety of periodic mesostructures and thicknesses ranging from few nanometers to several micrometers are accessible using the same organic template, and the final structures are tunable by varying the fraction of the "bricks". The beneficial combination of crystallinity and porosity leads to greatly enhanced activity of the films in photocatalytic processes, such as the photooxidation of NO. Acting as the active layers in dye-sensitized solar cells, films of only 2.7 μm in thickness exhibit a conversion efficiency of 6.0%.

0897-4756
1260-1265
Szeifert, Johann M.
546ddc88-ab53-4c2e-8d76-ad86dc0cd701
Fattakhova-Rohlfing, Dina
acea310a-e3d0-497d-a663-b9a97fcf379f
Georgiadou, Dimitra
84977176-3678-4fb3-a3dd-2044a49c853b
Kalousek, Vit
cfc39d93-17bd-4667-8d6f-b02599c2009d
Rathouský, Jiri
fb2d7240-b4a5-464f-a3cd-fa09df67617f
Kuang, Daibin
3e2d8389-2442-49a7-b424-4af92603b5f4
Wenger, Sophie
9d87b9ae-ae53-4547-a817-82614a67cec3
Zakeeraddin, Shaik M.
6be95731-cb5e-41cc-9aa0-6e1d2de3a0ea
Grätzel, Michael
4309bfa9-a622-470e-8e0b-0f42491617cf
Bein, Thomas
90cb2c47-9fa6-463e-9a86-40503461ecc2
Szeifert, Johann M.
546ddc88-ab53-4c2e-8d76-ad86dc0cd701
Fattakhova-Rohlfing, Dina
acea310a-e3d0-497d-a663-b9a97fcf379f
Georgiadou, Dimitra
84977176-3678-4fb3-a3dd-2044a49c853b
Kalousek, Vit
cfc39d93-17bd-4667-8d6f-b02599c2009d
Rathouský, Jiri
fb2d7240-b4a5-464f-a3cd-fa09df67617f
Kuang, Daibin
3e2d8389-2442-49a7-b424-4af92603b5f4
Wenger, Sophie
9d87b9ae-ae53-4547-a817-82614a67cec3
Zakeeraddin, Shaik M.
6be95731-cb5e-41cc-9aa0-6e1d2de3a0ea
Grätzel, Michael
4309bfa9-a622-470e-8e0b-0f42491617cf
Bein, Thomas
90cb2c47-9fa6-463e-9a86-40503461ecc2

Szeifert, Johann M., Fattakhova-Rohlfing, Dina, Georgiadou, Dimitra, Kalousek, Vit, Rathouský, Jiri, Kuang, Daibin, Wenger, Sophie, Zakeeraddin, Shaik M., Grätzel, Michael and Bein, Thomas (2009) Brick and mortar strategy for the formation of highly crystalline mesoporous titania films from nanocrystalline building blocks. Chemistry of Materials, 21 (7), 1260-1265. (doi:10.1021/cm8029246).

Record type: Article

Abstract

We present a novel "brick and mortar" strategy for creating highly efficient transparent TiO2 coatings for photocatalytic and photovoltaic applications. Our approach is based on the fusion of preformed titania nanocrystalline "bricks" through surfactant-templated sol - gel titania "mortar", which acts as a structure-directing matrix and as a chemical glue. The similar chemical composition of both bricks and mortar leads to a striking synergy in the interaction of crystalline and amorphous components, such that crystallization is enhanced upon thermal treatment and highly porous and highly crystalline structures are formed at very mild conditions. Coatings with a broad variety of periodic mesostructures and thicknesses ranging from few nanometers to several micrometers are accessible using the same organic template, and the final structures are tunable by varying the fraction of the "bricks". The beneficial combination of crystallinity and porosity leads to greatly enhanced activity of the films in photocatalytic processes, such as the photooxidation of NO. Acting as the active layers in dye-sensitized solar cells, films of only 2.7 μm in thickness exhibit a conversion efficiency of 6.0%.

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More information

e-pub ahead of print date: 23 March 2009
Published date: 14 April 2009

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 439825
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/439825
ISSN: 0897-4756
PURE UUID: 3234bb7d-cd62-4b2a-b1f4-8e86c20ba5e3
ORCID for Dimitra Georgiadou: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-2620-3346

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Date deposited: 05 May 2020 16:30
Last modified: 06 Jun 2024 02:07

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Contributors

Author: Johann M. Szeifert
Author: Dina Fattakhova-Rohlfing
Author: Vit Kalousek
Author: Jiri Rathouský
Author: Daibin Kuang
Author: Sophie Wenger
Author: Shaik M. Zakeeraddin
Author: Michael Grätzel
Author: Thomas Bein

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