(570z) Synthesis and Characterization of Titanium-Containing Mesoporous Silica

The purpose of our research is to develop the car air purifier that requires no electric energy. Mesoporous silica is suitable for the adsorption separation of relatively large molecules. Addition of photo-catalytic function to mesoporous silica by introducing titanium into the silica network would help to prevent an accumulation of the adsorbed pollutants on the silica. Titanium-containing mesoporous silica was successfully prepared via a sol?gel method. Surfactant of stearylmethylammonium chloride (C18TAC) was used as a template. The Ti-containing mesoporous silica was characterized by BET surface area and pore size distribution analysis, chemical analysis of the surface acidity and adsorption measurement. The performances of the synthesized photocatalyst were measured by the photodecomposition rate of methylene blue in water using an UV irradiating light of 365 nm. The BET surface area of the mesoporous silica prepared at Ti/Si molar ratio of 0.02-0.1 was approximately two times higher than that of pure mesoporous silica and was as high as 1200 m2/g. The amount of adsorption of methylene blue was not dependent on the content of titanium on the synthesized mesoporous silica due to their sufficient BET surface area. The highest photocatalytic reactivity for the decomposition was obtained at Ti/Si molar ratio of 0.05. The fibrous mesoporous silica photocatalyst was produced by coating their gel on glass fiber as support materials and some factors affecting the preparation process were discussed.