Intrinsic effect of H2O on the structural characteristic of TiO2 synthesized by using polyethylene glycol as template

The structural characteristics of TiO2 were found to intrinsically depend on the existence of H2O when using polyethylene glycol (PEG) as templating material in synthetic process. The channel-structured TiO2 with pore size of about 18 nm was obtained by in-situ esterification method using PEG as alcohol source without adding H2O. The channel structure was originated from the organic–inorganic interaction between Ti species and PEG template, which enhanced the photocatalytic activity for decomposition of 2-isopropyl-6-methyl-4-pyrimidinol (IMP). Adding excess amount of H2O during the synthesis restrained the formation of organic–inorganic interaction, resulting in poor physical properties and low photocatalytic activity of the prepared TiO2.