• Rapid Communication in Photoscience
• /
• v.1 no.1
• /
• pp.13-15
• /
• 2012

New porous $TiO_2$ nanostructures with shapes of pearl and rice were synthesized by hydrothermal treatment of $TiO_2$-liposome nanocomposites in acid and base solutions, respectively, as identified by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) images and large Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface areas. The x-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns and selected area electron diffraction proved them to be well-defined anatase crystals. Their UV-visible reflectance absorption spectra were observed to have low band gap energy (3.03 and 3.07 eV, respectively), exhibiting surface absorption band in the visible range from 400 to 600 nm. The degradation of methylene blue (MB) over the $TiO_2$ nanostructures was observed upon visible-light irradiation, which was found to be very efficient as compared with any other conventional visible-light responsive $TiO_2$ nanostructures.