Preparation and Photocatalytic Performance of Nano Titania-Coated Beads

Abstract

Fluidized Bed Chemical Vapor Deposition (FB-CVD) method offers advantages over conventional Chemical Vapor Deposition method in coating three dimensional objects. In addition, catalysts prepared by FB-CVD method often show improved physicochemical properties. Thus, FB-CVD seems a useful method for coating TiO2 onto small beads, in view of their photocatalytic application in aqueous environment, for example. In this work, we produced TiO2 coated beads (1~2mm in diameter) of alumina, silica-gel, and glass in ~35nm thickness using FB-CVD method, and examined photocatalytic performance of TiO2 coated beads in the photocatalytic decomposition reaction of methylene blue solution. Based on the combined results of the decomposition reaction kinetics of methylene blue and FE-SEM images of the surface morphology of TiO2 coated beads, we were able to account for the photocatalytic performance with respect to characteristic features detected in the surface morphology.