Preparation of Mesoporous V2O5@TiO2 Composites with Enhanced Photoactivity for Gaseous Benzene Degradation

Mesoporous V2O5@TiO2 composites were fabricated by an ultrasonic method with V2O5 sol as the guest precursor. The prepared materials were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, field emission-scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscope, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, UV-Vis spectroscopy and nitrogen sorption analysis. The results indicated that V2O5 nanoparticles dispersed well on/into the porous structure of TiO2 matrix. The composites presented typical IUPAC IV isotherms with type H2 hysteresis loops, revealing the mesoporous structure. It was observed that V2O5 loading led to red shift of the absorption edge to 540 nm and reduced the band gap < 3.0 eV. The V2O5@TiO2 composites with V/Ti molar ratio of 0.1 exhibited outstanding degradation efficiency of gaseous benzene.