Functional nanoporous titanium dioxide for separation applications: synthesis routes and properties to performance analysis

Titanium dioxide represents an attractive industrial material for a wide range of applications, however in the last decades, research has been focused on its implementation in remediation systems for water treatment. The need to design nanoporous and nanotextured titania materials has arisen from the unique, beneficial properties of nanoscale titania for catalysis, separation and membrane sieving. This chapter reviews the synthesis procedures to generate tuneable titania materials either as self-supporting structures or as active layers on top of other porous materials. Finally, the catalytic properties of nanoporous and nanostructured TiO2 are reviewed for the degradation of organic compounds in wastewater. Significant parameters, such as specific surface area and crystallite size, are shown to be critical and must be optimised towards the fabrication of catalytic reactors for Advanced Oxidation Processes (AOP).