Effect of aluminum foam support and polyethylene glycol on surface morphology and photocatalytic behavior of TiO2 films

Nanostructured TiO2 films were prepared via a sol-gel process on open-celled aluminum foams that underwent different pretreatments, namely alkaline etching, pre-heating and Al2O3 sol coating. The effects of support pretreatment and polyethylene glycol (PEG) modified sol on the morphology and photocatalysis of TiO2 films were investigated. It was found that Al2O3/Al support could effectively inhibit the TiO2 film cracking compared to Al support with rugged surface, and the high-quality film with regular pores and fine integrity could be further improved through the coating of PEG modified TiO2 sol. The results demonstrated that PEG-TiO2/Al2O3/aluminum-foam photocatalyst obviously enhanced the photocatalytic activity of the film because the loading amount of TiO2 as well as film microstructure were improved, and the photocatalyst exhibited great application potentials due to its excellent physical and chemical stability.