Preparation and characterization of mesoporous SnO2-pillared HTaWO6 with enhanced photocatalytic activity

A porous SnO2-pillared HTaWO6 nanocomposite was assembled from tantalotungstate nanosheets and SnO2 nanoparticles via an exfoliation-restacking route and characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, thermogravimetric analysis, UV-vis, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and N-2 adsorption-desorption measurements. It was revealed that the obtained material has a gallery height of about 2 nm, a specific surface area of about 80 m(2) g(-1) and a wide pore size distribution with two extrema at about 2 and 3 nm. The mesoporous material exhibits enhanced photocatalytic activity in the degradation of MB, attributed to its high surface area, mesoporosity and the electronic coupling between the host and the guest components. A photoexcitation model of the semiconductor-semiconductor pillared photocatalyst was proposed based on the results of XPS and UV-vis.