Hollow mesoporous titania microsphere with low shell thickness/diameter ratio and high photocatalysis

Hollow mesoporous titania microsphere (HTS) was fabricated in a sol–gel process by alternatively coating of Titania precursor Titanium tetrabutoxide (TBOT) and polydimethyldiallylammonium chloride (PDDA) polyelectrolyte onto cationic polystyrene sphere (PS) template, followed by calcination. Particularly, we underlined the functional synergy of cationic PS template and cationic polyelectrolyte PDDA layer in the formation of HTS. The resultant uniform mesoporous HTS (diameter 1.22 μm) features a low shell thickness/diameter ratio (∼2%) and a high specific surface area (∼77.5 m2/g), and thus leads to a high photocatalysis. We expect that this approach can be extended to the production of other versatile mesoscopic hollow inorganic materials.