ABSTRACT
In Chapters 2 through 4, we have introduced several methods for the fabrication of micro/nanostructured materials. These methods are simple, exible, controllable, and hence suitable for the mass production of micro-/nanostructured materials with good reproducibility, under benign conditions and a friendly environment. These micro/nanostructured materials are composed of microsized objects with nanostructures. Because of their special architectures, they possess the advantages of both nanosized and microscaled materials, that is, they have not only the high surface activity and high specic surface area of nanomaterials but also the antiaggregation property, stable structure, and easy separation property of microsized materials. More importantly, these materials exhibit strong structurally enhanced performances, such as signicantly enhanced adsorption and catalysis performances especially for semiconducting oxides with micro/nanostructures, and hence can be used for the highly efcient removal of contaminants in water. Here, the phrase “structurally enhanced properties” means that material performance is signicantly enhanced by structural tuning, or some performances of micro/nanostructured materials, due to their special structures, are much better than those of the same materials with normal structures. In this chapter, we introduce the photocatalytic properties of some typical oxide materials with special micro/nanostructures to demonstrate their structurally enhanced performances.
