title: Scalable synthesis of mesoporous titania microspheres via spray-drying method.
abstract: Mesoporous TiO2 has several potential applications due to its unique electronic and optical properties, although its structures and morphologies are typically difficult to tune because of its uncontrollable and fast sol-gel reaction. In this study we have coupled the template-directed-sol-gel-chemistry with the low-cost, scalable, and environmentally benign aerosol (spray-drying) one-pot preparation technique for the fabrication of hierarchically mesoporous TiO2 microspheres and Fe3O4@mesoporous TiO2-x microspheres in a large scale. Parameters during the pre-hydrolysis and spray-drying treatment were varied to successfully control the bead diameter, morphology, monodispersity, surface area and pore size for improving their effectiveness for better application. Unlike to the previous aerosol synthetic approaches, where mainly quite a high temperature gradient with the strict control of spray-drying precursor concentration is implied, our strategy is lying on comparatively low drying temperature with an additional post-ultrasonication (further hydrolysis and condensation) route of the pre-calcined TiO2 samples. As-synthesized mesoporous microspheres have a size distribution from 500nm to 5μm, specific surface areas ranging from 150 to 162m(2)g(-1) and mean pore sizes of several nanometers (4-6nm). Further Fe3O4@mesoporous TiO2-x microspheres were observed to show remarkable selective phosphopeptide-enrichment activity which might have significant importance in disease diagnosis and other biomedical applications.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Manas
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Pal
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wan
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Yongheng
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Yupu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Yang
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Wenjun
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Yuhui
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.
authors.forename: Gengfeng
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.affiliation: Materials Science and Technology Program, College of Arts and Sciences, Qatar University, PO Box 2713, Doha, Qatar.
authors.forename: Ahmed A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Elzatahry
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, College of Science, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Abdulaziz
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Alghamdi
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China; State Key Lab of Transducer Technology, Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology, Chinese Academy of Science, Shanghai 200050, China. Electronic address: yhdeng@fudan.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yonghui
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Deng
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Advanced Materials, State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Molecular Catalysis and Innovative Materials, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials (iChEM), Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China. Electronic address: dyzhao@fudan.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Dongyuan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhao
mesh_terms: D003890:Desiccation; D008863:Microspheres; D010316:Particle Size; D016062:Porosity; D013499:Surface Properties; D014025:Titanium / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: C009495:titanium dioxide; D014025:Titanium
keywords: Aerosol synthesis; Co-assembly; Enrichment; Magnetic microspheres; Mesoporous titania; Post-hydrolysis