Synthesis and characterization of immobilized activated carbon doped TiO2 thin films

Nanoscale TiO2 films and their application in remediation of organic pollutants

“…Arrays of experimental methods are available to synthesize undoped and metal/non-metal doped TiO 2 thin films [3,47,84,106]. These methods include sol-gel, chemical vapor deposition, hydrothermal, electrophoretic deposition, flame-aerosol, sputtering deposition, and spray pyrolysis [27,84,92,[107][108][109][110][111].…”

“…In a typical process [78], a colloidal suspension (a sol) is formed from the hydrolysis and polycondensation reactions of the precursors, which are usually metal organic compounds (such as metal alkox-A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t Edited June 15 10 ides) or inorganic metal salts. For developing thin films, the prepared sol is deposited onto the substrates using either dip-casting or spin-casting [47,89,112]. Following the polymerization and eventual loss of solvent, the liquid sol is transformed into a solid gel phase.…”

“…[28,30,[42][43][44][45][46][47], co-doping of metals/nonmetals with other metals/non-metals [48][49][50][51][52], coupling with carbonaceous nanoscale materials (fullerene (C 60 ), carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene) [53][54][55][56][57][58][59] and metal oxides (WO 3 [60], [61], SnO 2 [62], MoO 3 [63], SiO 2 [64]), as well as capping (coating of one semiconductor or metal nanomaterial on the surface of another semiconductor or metal nanomaterial core) of TiO 2 [65,66]. Coupling of narrowband semiconductors with TiO 2 to form heterojunction nanostructures (LaVO 4 /TiO 2 [67], Bi 2 WO 6 /TiO 2 [68], boron doped diamond-TiO 2 [69]) as well as rutile-anatase heterojunction [70][71][72][73][74][75][76] have also been investigated to enhance photocatalytic activity of TiO 2 in visible light.…”

“…Last but not least, the overall morphology of the films, such as smooth, uniform, free of cracks [28,47,114] or with granular, rough texture [130,132,137], varying nanoparticle morphology, such as formation of triangles, dendritic islands [136,172], inclusion of porosity [27,114,145], film transparency, etc. can be tailored to desired character by modifying process parameters and inclusion of the external dopant elements.…”

Structural and textural features of TiO2/SAPO-34 nanocomposite prepared by the sol–gel method

“…The materials containing TiO 2 obtained by this method can be re-used for several cycles due to their ease of separation in the reaction medium and its interesting photocatalytic properties. In order to improve these properties, several attempts have been proposed for the immobilization of TiO 2 on different supports such as clay [27], silica's [28], polymer [29], activated carbon [30], zeolite [31]… Zeolites are interesting support materials due to their high surface area, uniform pores, unique structures, an excellent adsorption and high thermal stability [32]. To date several zeolites have been used as supports for TiO 2 particles such as ZSM-11 [32], Beta [33], Y and X zeolite [34,35], and natural zeolites [36,37].…”