2.2 Preparation of TiO2 and TiO2/MC nanocomposites
Pure TiO2 catalyst was prepared through sol-gel method
with using tetrabutyl titanate as a titaniaum precursor[23]. 4.25
mL tetrabutyl titanate and 6.4 ml absolute ethyl alcohol were
mixed to form solution A, which was added drop-wise to the
solution B containing 6.4 mL absolute ethyl alcohol, 1.2 mL
alacial acetic acid and 9.6 mL deionized water under stirring.
The resulting transparent yellowish TiO2-sol was stirred for 6
h, and aged for 24 h until the formation of wet gel. Then, the
wet gel was dried in vacuum at 80 o
C for 24 h, and finally
calcined under N2 atmosphere at 450 o
C for 3 h to obtain
nanoscaled TiO2 powders. The TiO2/MC nanocomposites were
prepared by adding a required amount of mesoporous carbon
to the TiO2-sol at a certain viscosity during stirring, followed
by calcination. The obtained sample was denoted as
nTiO2/MC-T, in which n is mass fraction of TiO2 to MC, and T
is calcination temperature