A technique to determine the surface fractal dimension of mesoporous TiO2 using a dynamic flow adsorption instrument is described. Fractal dimension is an additional technique to characterize surface morphology. Surface fractal dimension, a quantitative measurement of surface ruggedness, can be determined by adsorbing a homologous series of adsorbates onto an adsorbent sample of mesoporous TiO2. Titania wet gel prepared by hydrolysis of Ti-alkoxide was immersed in the flow of supercritical CO2 at 60 °C and the solvent was extracted. Mesoporous TiO2 consists of anatase nano-particles, about 5nm in diameter, have been obtained. After calcination at 600 °C, the average pore size of the extracted gel, about 20nm in diameter, and the pore volume, about 0.35cm3g-1, and the specific surface area, about 58 m2g-1. Using the N2 adsorption isotherm, the surface fractal dimension, DS, has been estimated according to the Frenkel-Halsey-Hill (FHH) theory. The N2 adsorption isotherm for the as-extracted aerogel indicates the mesoporous structure. Two linear regions are found for the FHH plot of the as-extracted aerogel. The estimated surface fractal dimensions are about 2.49 and 2.68. Both of the DS values indicate rather complex surface morphology. The TEM observation shows that there are amorphous and crystalline particles. Two values of DS may be attributed to these two kinds of particles. The two regions are in near length scales, and the smaller DS, DS =2.49, for the smaller region. This result indicates that there are two kinds of particles, probably amorphous and anatase particles as shown by the TEM observation. Keywords: surface fractal dimensions, CO2 supercritically extraction, sol-gel, aerogel, titania
Evaluation and comparison of bentonite surface fractal dimension and prediction of swelling deformation: Synchrotron radiation SAXS and N2-adsorption isotherms method
