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Structural, optical and photocatalytic properties of erbium (Er3+) and yttrium (Y3+) doped TiO2 thin films with remarkable self-cleaning super-hydrophilic properties

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journal contribution
posted on 2020-05-26, 10:44 authored by Raquel da Silva Cardoso, Suélen Maria de Amorim, Gidiane Scaratti, Camilla Daniela Moura-Nickel, Rodrigo Peralta-Muniz-Moreira, Gianluca Li-Puma, Regina de Fatima Peralta Muniz Moreira
The self-cleaning and super hydrophilic properties of pristine TiO2 and of TiO2 doped with Er3+ or Y3+ transparent thin films deposited onto glass substrates were investigated. The thin films prepared by multiple dipping and drying cycles of the glass substrate into the pristine TiO2 sol and Er3+ or Y3+-doped TiO2 sol were characterized by X-ray diffraction, UV-vis spectrophotometry, and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The self-cleaning photocatalytic activity of the thin films towards the removal of oleic acid deposited on the surface under UVA irradiation was evaluated. A remarkable enhancement was observed in the hydrophilic nature of the TiO2 thin films under irradiation. The optical properties and wettability of TiO2 were not affected by Er3+ or Y3+ doping. However, the photocatalytic degradation of leic acid under UVA irradiation improved up to 1.83 or 1.95 fold as the Er3+ or Y3+ content increased, respectively, due to the enhanced separation of the photogenerated carriers and reduced crystallite size. AFM analysis showed that the surface roughness increased by increasing the Er3+ or Y3+ content due to the formation of large aggregates. This in turn contributes to the increase of the active surface area enhancing the photodegradation process. This study demonstrates that TiO2 doped with low amounts of Er3+ or Y3+ down to 0.5 mol% can produce transparent, super-hydrophilic, thin film surfaces with remarkable self-cleaning properties.

Funding

Brazilian government agencies CAPES/Brazil (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, Project number 88887.310560/2018-00) and CNPq/Brazil (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifíco e Tecnológico, Grants 405.223/2018-8 and 301.479/2018-6).

History

School

  • Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering

Department

  • Chemical Engineering

Published in

RSC Advances

Volume

10

Issue

29

Pages

17247 - 17254

Publisher

The Royal Society of Chemistry

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Rights holder

© The Royal Society of Chemistry

Publisher statement

This is an Open Access article. It is published by The Royal Society of Chemistry under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence (CC BY-NC 3.0). Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/

Acceptance date

2020-04-26

Publication date

2020-05-04

Copyright date

2020

eISSN

2046-2069

Language

  • en

Depositor

Prof Gianluca Li Puma. Deposit date: 23 May 2020

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