Abstract
The actual interest in developing light-induced catalytic coatings to act as an antibiofouling alternative has recently prompted interest in the incorporation of Cu into TiO2 films, working as a visible light sensitizer catalyst. TiO2 and new Ti-Cu-O films with Cu contents ranging between 16% and 75% Cu/(Cu + Ti) are deposited by aerosol-assisted metalorganic chemical vapor deposition at a substrate temperature of 550 °C. The films are composed of TiO2 anatase phase, mixed with Cu2O when including Cu in the composition. Pure TiO2 films’ morphologies are characterized by the formation of microflower-like structures with nanometric petals, which induce a high specific surface. These features are not present in Ti-Cu-O films. A UV-Visible study revealed that the optical band gap energy decreases with increasing Cu content. Interestingly, Ti-Cu-O films presented a highly photo-catalytic activity in the orange-G degradation. Marine biofouling field tests in Lorient’s Harbor in France and in vitro tests were carried out in order to evaluate the antifouling performance of the films, revealing that topography and chemical composition can act differently on different species. Field tests revealed that TiO2 microflowers reduced the fouling coverage. Besides, Ti-Cu-O films with 16 at.% Cu presented lower fouling coverage than films containing 58 at.% Cu. In vitro tests using two diatoms (P. tricornutum and N. perminuta) showed that the spaces between microflowers play a significant role in the adhesion of diatoms: microalgae adhere less when spaces are bigger than their cells, compared to when spaces are of the same size as cells. Films containing Cu did not alter N. perminuta growth nor adhesion, while they affected P. tricornutum by lowering its growth rate and adhesion without noticeable toxicity. Indeed, Cu-Ti-O is a very promising non-toxic fouling release film for marine and industrial applications.
Highlights
Photocatalytic TiO2 films can be applied as self-cleaning surfaces to combat fouling problems in many types of environments [1,2]
TiO2 films containing flower-like microstructures were grown using the same deposition parameters
The photocatalytic activity of these TiO2 films was found to be very high, probably due to the high specific surface generated by the nanometric hierarchical flower-like structures [26]
Summary
Photocatalytic TiO2 films can be applied as self-cleaning surfaces to combat fouling problems in many types of environments [1,2]. Virus inactivation by photocatalytic TiO2 might occur through the generation of O2 − and *OH followed by damage of the viral protein and genome [7]. TiO2 has been extensively studied [8], and it still is nowadays [9,10,11,12], because of its photocatalytical activity, combined with other suitable properties. Mixed phase or doped materials present higher charge separation at the interfaces, leading to higher photocatalytic activities, compared to visible light-active photocatalysts [16,17]
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