Fabrication
of SiO<sub>2</sub>/TiO<sub>2</sub> Double-Shelled Hollow Nanospheres
with Controllable Size via Sol–Gel Reaction and Sonication-Mediated
Etching
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Abstract
Size-controllable double-shell SiO<sub>2</sub>/TiO<sub>2</sub> hollow nanoparticles (DS HNPs) were fabricated
using a simple sol–gel reaction and sonication-mediated etching.
The size of the DS HNPs was controlled using SiO<sub>2</sub> core
templates of various sizes. Moreover, monodisperse DS HNPs were produced
on a large scale (10 g per 1 batch) using the sol–gel method.
The surface area and porosity of intrashell and inner-cavity pores
were measured by Brunauer–Emmett–Teller analysis. As
a result, 240 nm DS HNPs (240 DS HNPs) exhibited the highest surface
area of 497 m<sup>2</sup> g<sup>–1</sup> and a high porosity.
Additionally, DS HNPs showed excellent light-scattering ability as
a scattering layer in dye-sensitized solar cells due to their structural
properties, such as a composite, double-shell, hollow structure, as
well as intrashell and inner cavity pores. The DSSCs incorporating
240 DS HNPs demonstrated an 18.3% enhanced power conversion efficiency
(PCE) compared to TiO<sub>2</sub> nanoparticles
