Nanostructured low crystallized titanium dioxide thin films with good photocatalytic activity

Transparent TiO2 thin films were deposited on soda lime glass at different substrate temperatures by a simple and reproducible spray pyrolysis technique from aqueous peroxo-polytitanic acid. Both the as-prepared and annealed films (3 h thermal treatment in air at 500 °C) were characterized by AFM, SEM, TEM, XRD, FT-IR and UV–visible spectroscopy. The as-prepared films present predominant low crystallized structure, low porosity, high surface roughness and grain agglomerates while the annealed films exhibit slightly better polycrystalline structure of brookite phase. The as-deposited TiO2 films prepared at low substrate temperatures (280 °C) show the best photocatalytic activity, against methylene-blue, due principally to their small grain size and high surface area.

Graphical abstractIn this work, transparent and low crystallized TiO2 thin films were deposited on soda lime glass at different substrate temperature by spray pyrolysis technique from aqueous peroxo-polytitanic acid. The as-prepared films (at 280 °C substrate temperature) have exhibited good photocatalytic activity against aqueous methylene-blue solution. TiO2 particle size measured by TEM for this material was around 7 nm.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide