Synthesis and photocatalytic activity of mesoporous TiO2 nanoparticle using biological renewable resource of un-modified lignin as a template

• Few work has used biological renewable resource of lignin template for porous TiO2.
• Electronegative lignin interacts with the positively charged Ti(OH)n(4−n)+ precursor.
• The mesoporous TiO2 exhibited good photocatalytic activity for phenol degradation.
• Lignin-aided TiO2 had the smaller and uniform pore size and high specific area.
• The formation mechanism for mesoporous TiO2 with a lignin template is proposed.

Mesoporous TiO2 was synthesized by a hydrolysis precipitation method with the utilization of the biological renewable resource of lignin as template and TiCl4 as reactant. The photocatalytic activity of TiO2 was investigated by the degradation of phenol under UV light irradiation. The microstructure, crystallinity, powder characteristic, and chemical bonding of the catalyst were analyzed. The 500 °C-calcined TiO2 had average crystallite size of about 11.1 nm and a mesoporous structure with specific area of 165.8 m2/g and pore volume of 0.312 cm3/g. The results showed that TiO2 synthesized with lignin template exhibited high photocatalytic activity, which can be attributed to the electronegativity and the network skeleton of lignin to uniformly distribute the TiO2 precursor for forming TiO2 mesoporous particles. The mechanism for the improved photodegradation of the lignin-assisted TiO2 was proposed.

TiO2 synthesized with lignin template exhibited high activity under ultraviolet light irradiation. The mechanism for the improved photodegradation of the lignin-assisted TiO2 was proposed.Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide