Concentric hollow nanospheres of mesoporous silica shell-titania core from combined inorganic and polymer syntheses.

Nearly monodispersed concentric hollow nanospheres with a mesoporous silica shell and anatase titania inner core were synthesized by the combination of sol-gel reaction and distillation-precipitation polymerization. The well-defined mesoporous concentric hollow nanospheres, comprising two nanostructured functional inorganics, can be used for confined catalytic reactions. The direct synthesis procedures can be readily extended to preparation of the concentric hollow nanospheres with multiple cores, or other functional concentric hollow nanospheres having different core-shell compositions.