Self-Template Synthesis of Porous Perovskite Titanate Solid and Hollow Submicrospheres for Photocatalytic Oxygen Evolution and Mesoscopic Solar Cells

We describe a general synthesis strategy, which combines sol-gel and hydrothermal processes, for the large-scale synthesis of porous perovskite titanates spheres with tunable particle size and inner structures. Amorphous hydrous TiO2 solid spheres (AHTSS) are first synthesized by a sol-gel method and are then used as precursor and template for the subsequent hydrothermal reaction with alkaline earth metal ions in an alkaline medium. This strategy can be generalized to synthesize porous spheres of various perovskite titanates (i.e., SrTiO3, BaTiO3, and CaTiO3) consisting of single-crystalline nanocubes. By controlling the textural properties (i.e., size, porosity, and structure) of AHTSS, perovskite titanates with tunable size and inner structures are selectively synthesized. The underlying formation mechanism is manifested by XRD and TEM to involve in situ crystallization or Ostwald ripening during the hydrothermal process. The obtained porous SrTiO3 spheres present superior performance in photocatalytic oxygen evolution and CdSe-sensitized mesoscopic solar cells.