Controllable preparation of nanosized TiO₂ thin film and relationship between structure of film and its photocatalytic activity

Abstract

TiO₂ nano-crystalline film and fixed bed photocatalytic reactor were prepared by the sol-gel process using tetrabutylorthotitanate as a precursor and glass tube as the substrate. XRD, AFM, SEM and thickness analysis results indicate that the preparation of nano-crystalline film can be controlled by optimizing experiment process. Under the optimized process, the phase of TiO₂ in film is anatase, and the grain size is 3–4 nm. The size of particles, which is about 20-80 nm, can be controlled. The thickness of monolayer film is in nanometer grade. The thickness and particles size in films growing on nanometer film can also be controlled in nanometer grade. As a result, the crack of film can be effectively avoided. Rhodamine degradation results using UV-Vis spectrophotometer show that the activity of nano-crystalline film in the photocatalytic reactor has a good relation with the diameter of TiO₂ particles, that is, the film shows high activity when the size is 20 –30 nm and greatly reduced when the size is above 60 nm. The activity of film does not decrease with the increase of film thickness, and this result indicates that nano-crystalline film has no ill influence on the transmissivity of ultraviolet light.