Fabrication of rattle-type TiO2/SiO2 core/shell particles with both high photoactivity and UV-shielding property.

Rattle-type TiO(2)@void@SiO(2) particles, with commercial TiO(2) particles encapsulated into hollow SiO(2) shell, were fabricated by successive coating of multilayer polyelectrolytes and SiO(2) shell onto TiO(2) particles and then treatment by UV irradiation to remove the polyelectrolyte layers. TEM observation showed that the composite particles had a unique rattle-type structure in which there existed void space between TiO(2) core and SiO(2) shell. The photocatalytic degradation of Rhodamine B indicated that these composite particles with larger void space tended to have higher photoactivity. The polyurethane films doped with rattle-type TiO(2)@void@SiO(2) composite particles had very good UV-shielding property.