Abstract
Nanobubbles formed at a solid-liquid interface have attracted a lot of attention because of their unique physical and chemical properties, and their foundational interests in life science, physics and other science areas. We found that the nanobubbles could be created on TiO2 coating surface in pure water by the “solvent exchange” method. By using a temperature-controller accessory and a single-probe thermocouple to control the temperature in atomic force microscopy (AFM) liquid cell, we studied the influence of temperature and degassing on the aggregation of nanobubbles on the TiO2 coatings surface.
Highlights
Nanobubbles are ubiquitous and play an important role in the formation such as long-range attractive forces at hydrophobic interfaces, fluid boundary slip, adsorption of biomolecules at surfaces, and stabilization of colloidal system [1,2,3,4]
3.1 Characterization of TiO2 thin films surface in air Figure 1a, b show the atomic force microscopy (AFM) images of TiO2 coated on mica
The “Solvent exchange” method has widely been used as a simple and reproducible method to generate the nanobubbles at solid/liquid interfaces. This method provides us an easy way to study the properties of nanobubbles at the solid/liquid interfaces using AFM imaging, too
Summary
Nanobubbles are ubiquitous and play an important role in the formation such as long-range attractive forces at hydrophobic interfaces, fluid boundary slip, adsorption of biomolecules at surfaces, and stabilization of colloidal system [1,2,3,4]. We have established a general approach, deliberately inducing nanobubbles on the solid substrate surface by the so called “solvent exchange” method, under a controllable manner [7, 8]. Due to good chemical stability, photocatalytic property, corrosion resistance, and intoxicity, nano-scale TiO2 has been extensively employed in areas such as solar cells, hydrogen production, and environmental protection [9]. It has been demonstrated, theoretically and experimentally, that the photocatalytic efficiency of TiO2 depends critically on photogenic carrier density and the rate of carrier mobility [10]. We further confirmed the nanobubbles on the surface TiO2 coatings can be generated by using the so-called “solvent exchange” method and degassing process
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