Synthesis of porous TiO2 nano-cups by using electrospray

Abstract

In this work, we prepared a composite solution of dissolving poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) and titanium tetraisopropoxide (TTIP) in nitromethane. The solution was electrosprayed from the metal needle, typically applied to ~ 10kV, to a grounded collector. Under optimized conditions, the formed PMMA/TiO2 composite was observed by SEM to have a cup-like nanostructure with porosity, being transformed to porous TiO2 nano-cups by sequent calcination at 550 C. The detailed nano-cup structure such as a cup size and porosity was found to be controlled by the strength in electrical field and relative concentration between PMMA and TTIP. This simple methodology can provides a lot of opportunities to synthesis inorganic nanoparticles with non-spherical geometry with the aid of the template nanostructures formed by specific polymer under electrospray process.