Sepiolite fiber reinforced TiO₂/SiO₂ composite aerogel based on CTAB “template” effect

TiO₂/SiO₂ composite aerogel was prepared by sol–gel method with atmospheric pressure drying. However, the aerogel suffered from poor structural strength, and in most cases, they lost their shape under thermal stress. Herein, a novel strategy that improved the structure chunkiness and photocatalytic activity of aerogel was proposed. The formation process of sepiolite fiber-reinforced TiO₂/SiO₂ composite aerogel explored effect of hexadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as a “template” on the physicochemical properties of aerogel and the toughened mechanism of sepiolite fiber in gel network. The synergistic effect of CTAB, sepiolite fiber and TiO₂/SiO₂ composite aerogel is conducive to optimizing the structure of aerogel and improving the photocatalytic degradation efficiency. The results showed that sepiolite fiber-reinforced TiO₂/SiO₂ composite aerogel not only had good chunk formation, but also enhanced the photocatalytic activity of rhodamine B (Rh B) solution by three times under ultraviolet (UV) irradiation.