Facile synthesis of mesoporous titanium dioxide nanocomposites with controllable phase compositions by microwave-assisted esterification

Mesoporous titanium dioxide nanocomposites with controllable phase compositions and high surface areas were synthesized through convenient, fast, and one-step microwave-assisted esterification method. The introduction of microwave in the synthetic reactions not only accelerates the esterification reaction but also promotes the fast crystallization. By changing reaction temperature, microwave irradiation time, the amount of staring materials and the composition of solvents, pure anatase, pure rutile or mixed phase titanium dioxide nanocomposites were obtained in minutes. Meanwhile, the size of crystallite can be controlled by the reaction temperature. The as-synthesized materials display significative photocatalytic activities without any further disposal, among which the material with 3.6% rutile shows the best effect in degradation of methylene blue under UV-light irradiation. Moreover, the nitrogen adsorption–desorption results illustrate the obtained samples are mesophases. It is also interesting that the pure rutile has specific surface area as high as 210 m2 g−1 calculated by BET equation. The method can control the hydrolysis of TiCl4 well and dramatically shorten the preparation time of titanium dioxide.