Synthesis of mesoporous titanium thin film / organic and inorganic composite materials

Abstract

Mesoporous titania materials are of considerable interest as they usually show higher surface contacts with organics and much more uniform structure compared with randomly organized forms of nanocrystalline titania. The nanocrystalline form even has many potential applications, such as electrochromic devices, photo conductors, photo catalysts and sensor. Herein, we tried to prepare the titania mesostructured nanocomposites using block copolymers as pore-directing agents surfactant via sol-gel process. In the first part, we tried to develop a method which could prepare nanocrystalline organic/TiO2 mesostructured composites in one step. We used the Brij type-block copolymer surfactant as template to synthesize titania mesostructured nanocomposites. Such materials were obtained in hierarchical structure which anatase nanocrystals were in framework. We successfully prepared these materials as thin film by spin-coating. The physical properties of the nanocomposites were characterized by X-ray Diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Grazing incidence small angle X-ray Scattering (GISAXS). In the second part, fluorescent surfactants were successfully synthesized via Sonogashira coupling reaction. The fluorescent surfactants were designed based on the structure of Brij- type surfactant. The hydrophilic parts were composed of block copolymer. The hydrophobic parts were composed of fluorescent dyes and long chains. Based on part 1 conditions, we could straightly synthesize a hierarchical structure─nanocrystalline organic / titania mesostructured composites. Photoluminescence (PL) behavior and physical properties of the resulting materials were fully characterized by XRD, UV-Vis, PL, TEM, SEM, and GISAXS.