Abstract
The photocatalytic activity of zirconia (ZrO2) thin film fabricated by a sol-gel method was investigated using methyl red decomposition under ultraviolet C (UV-C) irradiation. The dependence of ZrO2 photocatalytic properties on annealing temperature was also investigated. The photocatalytic activity of ZrO2 was compared with that of TiO2, a standard photocatalyst material. Zirconia annealed at 500–700 °C has a combined tetragonal and monoclinic crystal structure, while that annealed at 800–980 °C has an almost exclusively monoclinic structure. The photocatalytic activity of ZrO2 annealed at 500–700 °C was found to be higher than that of ZrO2 annealed above 800 °C. The low activity of ZrO2 annealed above 800 °C is considered to result from the increase in interstitial O− states formed by phase transitions, which lead to increased absorption at ∼5.4 eV. The photocatalytic activity of ZrO2 annealed at 500–700 °C was approximately ten times as high as that of TiO2, which suggests that pure ZrO2 with wide bandgap energy is a promising candidate for photocatalysis under UV-C irradiation.
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