title: Review of the progress in preparing nano TiO2: an important environmental engineering material.
abstract: TiO2 nanomaterial is promising with its high potential and outstanding performance in photocatalytic environmental applications, such as CO2 conversion, water treatment, and air quality control. For many of these applications, the particle size, crystal structure and phase, porosity, and surface area influence the activity of TiO2 dramatically. TiO2 nanomaterials with special structures and morphologies, such as nanospheres, nanowires, nanotubes, nanorods, and nanoflowers are thus synthesized due to their desired characteristics. With an emphasis on the different morphologies of TiO2 and the influence factors in the synthesis, this review summarizes fourteen TiO2 preparation methods, such as the sol-gel method, solvothermal method, and reverse micelle method. The TiO2 formation mechanisms, the advantages and disadvantages of the preparation methods, and the photocatalytic environmental application examples are proposed as well.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA.. Electronic address: yanwang0523@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA.; Department of Materials Physics, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua 321004, China.
authors.forename: Yiming
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: He
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA.
authors.forename: Qinghua
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Lai
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA.. Electronic address: mfan@uwyo.edu.
authors.forename: Maohong
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fan
mesh_terms: D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D053768:Metal Nanoparticles; D008855:Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; D014025:Titanium / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: C009495:titanium dioxide; D014025:Titanium
keywords: Formation mechanism; Nanomaterial; Photocatalytic environmental application; TiO(2) preparation