Photocatalytic degradation of gaseous toluene over TiO2–SiO2 composite nanotubes synthesized by sol–gel with template technique

TiO2–SiO2 composite nanotubes were successfully synthesized by a facile sol–gel technique utilizing ZnO nanowires as template. The nanotubes were well characterized by transmission electron microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, N2 adsorption–desorption analysis and UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The nanotubular TiO2–SiO2 composite photocatalysts showed diameter of 300–325 nm, fine mesoporous structure and high specific surface area. The results indicated that the degradation efficiency of gaseous toluene could get 65% after 4 h reaction using the TiO2–SiO2 composite as the photocatalyst under UV light illumination, which was higher than that of P25.