Fast and Low-Temperature (70 °C) Mineralization of Inkjet Printed Mesoporous TiO2 Photoanodes Using Ambient Air Plasma

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Authors

HOMOLA Tomáš DZIK Petr VESELÝ Michal KELAR Jakub ČERNÁK Mirko WEITER Martin

Year of publication 2016
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Science

Citation
Web http://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/acsami.6b09556
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsami.6b09556
Field Plasma physics
Keywords ambient air plasma;fast mineralization;inkjet printing;low-temperature sintering;mesoporous coating;plasma treatment;TiO2 photoanode;
Description Hybrid mesoporous titania/silica electron-generating and transporting layers were prepared using wet-coating with a dispersion consisting of prefabricated titania nanoparticles and a methyl-silica binder. Titania/methyl-silica wet layers were deposited by inkjet printing and further mineralized by low-temperature atmospheric-pressure air plasma using diffuse coplanar surface barrier discharge (DCSBD) to form a titania/silica hybrid nanocomposite coating. Morphological analysis performed by scanning electron microscopy revealed no damage to the titania nanoparticles and chemical analysis performed by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy disclosed a rapid decrease in carbon and increase in oxygen, indicating the oxidation effect of the plasma. The coatings were further electrochemically investigated with linear sweep voltammetry and chronoamperometry. The magnitude of photocurrent and photocatalytic activity were found to increase significantly with the plasma exposure on the order of 10s of seconds. The results obtained demonstrate the potential of DCSBD ambient air plasma for fast and low-temperature mineralization of titania mesoporous coatings.
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