Fabrication of TiO2‒Ag nanocomposite thin films via one-step gas-phase deposition

Photocatalytic Activity of ZnO-Ag Nanocomposites Prepared by a One-step Process using Flame Pyrolysis

“…It is also clearly observed that the morphology of the nanocomposite produced was not significantly different with various Ag loadings. This result is in line with with the results reported by Kusdianto et al (2017). However, some aggregate particles can be observed from the SEM images, especially for the pristine ZnO and ZnO-Ag with a higher concentration of Ag content.…”

“…This may be caused by the interaction of particles through the van der Waals force, which causes the molecules to interact and bond with each other. Our results are in a good agreement with those of Dehimi et al (2015), which showed that the particle size of ZnO increased when Ag dopant was added to the ZnO particles during annealing, at a temperature of 500 o C. Kusdianto et al (2017) also report that particle size increased after adding the Ag nanoparticles to the TiO2 matrix due to the metalinduced crystallization phenomenon and the coalescence of particles. Furthermore, the heat transfer among the ZnO may be enhanced by the presence of Ag nanoparticles.…”

“…This indicates that the optimum condition for MB degradation was reached when the Ag content was 5%wt, which can be attributed to the synergetic effect between the generation of electrons-holes by ZnO after UV light irradiation and the presence of Ag nanoparticles. In this case, the electrons placed in the conduction band (CB) will be immediately absorbed by a sufficient amount of Ag nanoparticles, because Ag is an electron acceptor (Yu et al, 2005;Kusdianto et al, 2017). On the other hand, the electrons trapped in the Ag nanoparticles could not return to the ZnO structure because the Fermi level of the ZnO is greater than that of Ag.…”

“…In general, Ag nanoparticles are more attractive as dopants compared to other noble metals because of their high electrical and thermal conductivity, non-toxicity, cost-effectiveness, and high work function (Kadam et al, 2018). Kusdianto et al (2017) reported that the addition of Ag nanoparticles enhanced the photocatalytic activity of the nanocomposite produced by up to 35% compared to pristine TiO2 because Ag can be used as an electron acceptor to inhibit the electronhole recombination.…”

Photocatalytic Activity of Ag-TiO2 Composites Deposited by Photoreduction under UV Irradiation

“…Yilmaz et al deposited photochemically Pd nanoparticles on TiO 2 nanorods, and they corroborated that electron transfer between Pd and TiO 2 was improved after modification process [16]. Currently, different reports showed advances for the fabrication of Ag/TiO 2 nanoheterostructure catalysts (e.g., Ag-modified TiO 2 nanoparticles, nanowires, and nanorods) [17,18]; however, several practical problems arise from the use of powder during the photocatalytic process: (a) separation of insoluble catalyst from suspension is harder, (b) particles in suspensions create aggregates especially at high concentrations, and (c) suspensions are difficult to apply on continuous flow systems. The TiO 2 thin film is an efficient alternative to solve these drawbacks.…”