Preparation and characterization of thin film of photo-catalyst titanium oxide by dip coating method

Meeti Mehra and T R Sharma

Abstract

In this paper, a sol-gel technique with dip coating method is used to prepare photocatalytic TiO2 thin films immobilized on glass substrate. The substrates were coated with titanium peroxide precursor solution of controlled viscosity at a constant pulling rate of 1 mm s−1, air-dried and further heated at 400 ◦C to obtain uniform films with good adhesion to the substrate. The titanium oxide films deposited by this technique were 20–100 nm thick with a particle size of 4–10 nm and showed anatase structure. Films of titanium oxide as well as the dried powder of bulk gel were characterized by different techniques like X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV–Vis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), N2 adsorption and thermogravimetric differential thermal analysis (TG-DTA) techniques. The titanium oxide films were found to be very active for photocatalytic decomposition of methyl orange and methylene blue.The photoactivity of the prepared TiO2 thin films exhibits a comparable efficiency with TiO2 powder,Degussa P-25