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In order to further improve the photocatalytic performance of the SiO2/TiO2 composite under visible light irradiation, curcumin-doped SiO2/TiO2 nanocomposites were synthesized via directly incorporating it into the structure of SiO2/TiO2 during the synthesis using an inexpensive and readily available natural pigment (curcumin) as doping agent. The physicochemical properties of SiO2/TiO2 nanocomposites were characterized in detail by X-ray diffraction, transmission electron microscopy, Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy, N2 adsorption–desorption isotherms, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and UV-vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The results indicate that all SiO2/TiO2 nanocomposites exhibited an anatase phase with a typical mesoporous structure. It was found that the dope of curcumin in the SiO2/TiO2 composite could decrease the crystal size, slightly improve the specific surface areas, significantly enhance the visible light absorption, and effectively narrow the band gap energy from 3.04 to 10(eV). Compared with bare SiO2/TiO2, the curcumin-doped SiO2/TiO2 resulted in enhanced photocatalytic reduction activity for Cr(VI) under visible light irradiation, and the CTS (12) sample with the appropriate content of curcumin of 12 wt % shows the photocatalytic yield reaching 100% within 2.5 hours, which is larger than CT (12) without silica. This could be attributed to the curcumin doping and the synergetic effects of SiO2 and TiO2 in SiO2/TiO2 nanocomposites.

Liquid-phase catalytic oxidation of limonene was carried out under mild conditions, and carvone was produced in the presence of ZIF-67(Co), cobalt based zeolitic imidazolate framework, as catalyst, using t-butyl hydroperoxide (t-BHP) as oxidant and benzene as solvent. As a heterogeneous catalyst, the zeolitic imidazolate framework ZIF-67(Co) exhibited reasonable substrate–product selectivity (55.4%) and conversion (29.8%). Finally, the X-ray diffraction patterns of the catalyst before and after proved that ZIF-67(Co) acted as a heterogeneous catalyst, and can be reused without losing its activity to a great extent.

Nitrogen doping in combination with the brookite phase or a mixture of TiO2 polymorphs nanomaterials can enhance photocatalytic activity under visible light. Generally, nitrogen-dopedanatase/brookite mixed phases TiO2 nanoparticles obtained by hydrothermal or solvothermal method need to be at high temperature and with long time heating treatment. Furthermore, the surface areas of them are low (

The biotemplating technique is an environmental-protective high-efficiency new technology by which the resulting TiO2 may simultaneously attain the duplication of structure and self-doping elements from biotemplate materials, which is highly desirable for photocatalytic applications. In this paper, aquatic plant leaves—including reed, water hyacinth, and duckweed—were used as both templates and silicon precursors to successfully synthesize biomorphic TiO2/SiO2 composite with mesoporous structures. X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, N2 adsorption–desorption, and UV–visible diffuse reflectance spectra were applied to characterize the microstructures of the samples. The results show that all TiO2/SiO2 composites are mainly composed of an anatase phase with mesoporous structure and possess high specific surface area. Compared with commercial Degussa P25 TiO2, all TiO2/SiO2 samples display intensive light-harvesting efficiency, particularly in the visible light range. The activities were evaluated by using gentian violet as a target for photocatalytic degradation experiments under simulated solar irradiation. The TiO2/SiO2 samples templated by reed and water hyacinth leaves exhibit high activity, while the TiO2/SiO2 samples obtained from duckweed are inferior to P25 in the degradation of gentian violet. A synergistic effect of SiO2 incorporation and structural construction through biotemplating is proposed to be beneficial to photocatalytic activity.

The use of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) in the polymerization field remains comparatively rare up to now, let alone studies on the fabrication of polymer microstructures through a MOFs-catalyzed assembly process. Zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8), a well-known MOF for its chemical and thermal stabilities, was used to induce a polymerization reaction of saturated alkylsilanes for the first time. The reaction temperature was found to be critical for morphology control of the polymerized ZIF-siloxane composites. The polymerization of alkylsilanes by ZIF-8 at room temperature resulted in siloxane microspheres while rose petal-like microstructures were obtained at higher temperature. The effects of the reaction time on the structures of the polymerization products were also investigated and the polymerization reaction process was proposed. This work expands the field of MOFs’ applications and develops a reasonable method for the multidimensional assembly of MOFs building blocks into required structures or platforms for designing new kinds of hierarchical morphologies, which to our knowledge has not been previously investigated.