A facile synthesis of graphene-supported mesoporous TiO2 hybrid sheets with uniform coverage and controllable pore diameters

• Uniform layer of mesoporous TiO2 was deposited on both sides of graphene.
• The specific surface area and pore diameters of the hybrid could be adjusted.
• The hybrid exhibits higher photocatalytic activity than mesoporous TiO2.

Mesoporous TiO2 has attracted extensive research interest due to its promising application in photocatalysis, but which is inevitably diminished by the electro-hole pair recombination. The incorporation of graphene into mesoporous TiO2 can improve the properties, there are however great challenges in realizing the full potential of graphene due to its poor dispersion in organic solvents and the hard nucleation of TiO2 on its surface. Herein, we present a novel and easy approach for the synthesis of two-dimensional sandwich-like graphene-supported mesoporous TiO2 hybrid sheets with tailored morphologies, uniform coverage and controllable pore diameters and surface areas, leading to improved photocatalytic performance in comparison with bare mesoporous TiO2 spheres.

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