Spray Deposition Synthesis of Locally Ordered Mesoporous Polycrystalline Titania Films at Low Temperature
Journal article, 2022

A low-temperature spray deposition synthesis was developed to prepare locally hexagonally ordered mesoporous titania films with polycrystalline anatase pore walls in an evaporation-induced self-assembly process. The titania film preparation procedure is conducted completely at temperatures below 50◦C. The effects of spray time, film thickness, synthesis time prior to spray deposition, and aging time at high relative humidity after deposition on the atomic arrangement and the mesoorder of the mesoporous titania were studied. We find the crystallite size to depend on both the synthesis time and aging time of the films, where longer times result in larger crystallites. Using the photocatalytic activity of titania, the structure-directing agent is removed with UV radiation at 43–46◦C. The capability of the prepared films to remove the polymer template increased with longer synthesis and aging times due to the increased crystallinity, which increases the photocatalytic efficiency of the titania films. However, with increasingly longer times, the crystallites grow too large for the mesoorder of the pores to be maintained. This work shows that a scalable spray coating method can be used to prepare locally ordered mesoporous polycrystalline titania films by judiciously tuning the synthesis parameters.

TiO 2

Evaporation-induced self-assembly

Mesoporous

Titania

Spray coating

Author

Gunnar Örn Simonarson

Applied Surface Chemistry

Antiope Lotsari

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry

Anders Palmqvist

Chalmers, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Applied Chemistry

Molecules

1420-3049 (ISSN) 14203049 (eISSN)

Vol. 27 1 303

Subject Categories

Inorganic Chemistry

Materials Chemistry

Condensed Matter Physics

DOI

10.3390/molecules27010303

PubMed

35011534

More information

Latest update

1/11/2022