Aerosol-assisted synthesis of titania-based spherical and fibrous materials with a rational design of mesopores using PS- b -PEO.

Surfactant-assisted synthesis is a promising technique for the tailor-made design of highly porous metal oxide based nanomaterials. There has been a demand for the comprehensive design of their morphology, porous structure and crystallinity to extend potential applications using metal oxide based materials such as titania (TiO 2 ). However, the porous structure is often deformed and/or destroyed during the process of crystallizing metal oxide frameworks. Herein, the aerosol-assisted synthesis of mesoporous TiO 2 powders was conducted in the presence of high-molecular-weight poly(styrene)- block -poly(ethylene oxide) (PS- b -PEO), which improved the stability of the derivative mesoporous structure with an increase in the thickness of the TiO 2 frameworks. To propose a rational synthetic route for stable and porous metal oxides, the resultant mesoporous structure and the textural morphology of the mesoporous TiO 2 powders were surveyed using PS- b -PEO with different lengths of PS and PEO chains. By a judicious choice of the molecular structure of PS- b -PEO, the morphological design of the fully crystallized anatase phase of TiO 2 from spherical to fibrous ones was achieved with control over the mesopore diameter.