Mesoporous MgTa₂O₆ thin films with enhanced photocatalytic activity: On the interplay between crystallinity and mesostructure

• Jin-Ming Wu,
• Igor Djerdj,
• Till von Graberg and
• Bernd M. Smarsly

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2012, 3, 123–133, doi:10.3762/bjnano.3.13

• considering the turnover frequency of such photocatalysts, the optimized activity of the present nanoarchitectured MgTa2O6 thin film was ca. four times that of analogous anatase TiO2 films with ordered mesopores. Our study demonstrated that high crystallinity and well-developed mesoporosity have to be

• evaporation speed of the solvent. The rapid evaporation produced randomly distributed bubbles, and when these collapsed they left randomly distributed, open, round concaves. The mesoporosity was additionally investigated by nitrogen physisorption at 77 K (see Supporting Information File 1). Since the amount

• , temperature-dependent structural analysis proved that mesoporosity itself is not sufficient to endow metal oxides with advanced physicochemical performance. Experimental section Film fabrication MgCl2 (47 mg; 99.99%, Aldrich) and Ta(OC2H5)5 (500 mg; 99.98%, Aldrich) were dissolved separately in ethanol (2 g

Synthesis and catalytic applications of combined zeolitic/mesoporous materials

• Jarian Vernimmen,
• Vera Meynen and
• Pegie Cool

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 785–801, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.87

• coordinated Ti [35][43]. Therefore, in the last decade, research has been focused on the combination of mesoporosity and zeolitic features [20][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. Many promising materials, such as MTS-9 [51] and Ti-MMM-1 [52] have already been developed. The ultimate goal is to develop a “true

• accessible via the micropores. Here, it is clear that not all configurations with a combined micro- and mesoporosity inherently give rise to an enhanced molecular transport to or from the active sites in the micropores. However, this does not mean that these combined zeolitic/mesoporous materials without (or

• is desilication [48][50][65][66][67]. Extraction of Si atoms by base treatments (also denoted as pore-directing agents, PDAs) leads to a significant amount of intracrystalline mesoporosity while preserving the intrinsic acidity and structural integrity of the zeolite framework. Also during this