Fabrication of Photocatalyst Glass Beads Coated with TiO2 Thin Film by a Layer-by-Layer Process

Abstract

TiO2 thin films consisting of positively charged poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride)(PDDA) and negatively charged titanium(IV) bis(ammonium lactato) dihydroxide(TALH) were successfully fabricated on glass beads by a layer-by-layer(LBL) self-assembly method. The glass beads used here showed a positive charge in an acid range and negative charge in an alkaline range. The glass beads coated with the coating sequence of(PDDA/TALH)n showed a change in the surface morphology as a function of the number of bilayers. When the number of bilayers(n) of the(PDDA/TALH) thin film was 20, Ti element was observed on the surface of the coated glass beads. The thin films coated onto the glass beads had a main peak of the (101) crystal face and were highly crystallized with XRD diffraction peaks of anatase-type TiO2 according to an XRD analysis. In addition, the TiO2 thin films showed photocatalytic properties such that they could decompose a methyl orange solution under illumination with UV light. As the number of bilayers of the(PDDA/TALH) thin film increased, the photocatalytic property of the TiO2-coated glass beads increased with the increase in the thin film thickness. The surface morphologies and optical properties of glass beads coated with TiO2 thin films with different coating numbers were measured by field emission scanning electron microscopy(FE-SEM), X-ray diffraction(XRD) and by UV-Vis spectrophotometry(UV-vis).