Polymer supported porous TiO2:: application to photo-catalysis

This work concerns the preparation and characterization of polymer supported adhesive TiO2 films starting from the P25 TiO2 powder. For this purpose, we prepared a TiO2 based paste and used the screen printing method. The annealing temperature of the screen printed layers was chosen taking into account the variation of the composition ratio and morphology of the TiO2 powder. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analyses show that the TiO2 powder conserves the same anatase/rutile composition at annealing temperatures below 600 degrees C, beyond the rutile TiO2 phase increases. Annealing dependence of the morphological features of the TiO, powder was investigated by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). XRD and AFM investigations enabled us preparing flexible polymer supported porous TiO2 films (mostly anatase), just by choosing temperatures that allow elimination of the organic inks forming the screen printing paste. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) shows that polymer supported TiO2 films are inhomogeneous and porous, which make them highly suitable for photo-catalysis applications. The photo-catalytic performances of the polymer supported porous TiO2 films were experienced on a typical textile dye by absorbance measurements using UV-Visible spectroscopy. (c) 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.