Aerosol spray assisted assembly of TiO2 mesocrystals into hierarchical hollow microspheres with enhanced photocatalytic performance

•An ultrasound-assisted aerosol spray approach to synthesize hierarchical TiO2 mesocrystals hollow microspheres were developed.•It was a general method to incorporating guest metal nanoparticles.•The TiO2 mesocrystal hollow microspheres can greatly improve the photocatalytic performance.•It shows great significance for the development and application of the TiO2 mesocrystals.

TiO2 mesocrystals significantly enhanced the charge separation owing to the oriented superstructures (less internal defects) and porous properties (more active sites), which was useful for applications from photocatalysis to optoelectronics. In this work, ultrasound assisted aerosol-spray method followed by topotactic transformations was adopted to fabricate TiO2 hierarchical hollow microspheres. The unique structure was assembled by TiO2 mesocrystal nanosheets. The TiO2 mesocrystal hollow microspheres can greatly improve the photocatalytic performance. Furthermore, with the addition of Au3+ species in the precursor solution, ultrafine Au nanoparticles (3-4 nm) were uniformly deposited on the surface of TiO2 hollow microspheres. It shows great significance for the development and application of the TiO2 mesocrystals.

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