Carbon as amorphous shell and interstitial dopant in mesoporous rutile TiO2: Bio-template assisted sol-gel synthesis and photocatalytic activity

Regenerated cellulose membrane was used as bio-template nanoreactor for the formation of rutile TiO2 mesoporous, as well as in-situ carbon dopant in acidified sol-gel system. The effects of calcination temperature on the physicochemical characteristic of core-shell nanostructured of bio-templated C-doped mesoporous TiO2 are highlighted in this study. By varying the calcination temperature, the thickness of the carbon shell coating on TiO2, crystallinity, surface area, and optical properties could be tuned as confirmed by HRTEM, nitrogen adsorption/desorption measurement, XRD and UV–vis-NIR spectroscopy. The results suggested that increment in the calcination temperature would lead to the band gap narrowing from 2.95 to 2.80 eV and the thickness of carbon shell increased from 0.40 to 1.20 nm. The x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy showed that the visible light absorption capability was mainly due to the incorporation of carbon dopant at interstitial position in the TiO2 to form OTiC or TiOC bond. In addition, the formation of the carbon core-shell nanostructured was due to carbonaceous layer grafted onto the surface of TiO2 via TiOC and TiOCO bonds. The result indicated that bio-templated C-doped core-shell mesoporous TiO2 prepared at 300 °C exhibited the highest photocatalytic activity. It is worthy to note that, the calcination temperature provided a huge impact towards improving the physicochemical and photocatalytic properties of the prepared bio-templated C-doped core-shell mesoporous TiO2.