Influence of TiO2 nanoparticle synthesis on the properties of thin coatings

Three different types of titania nanoparticles were used to fabricate coatings on glass substrates, comprising of two commercial products obtained from pyrolysis and precipitation as well as self-synthesized particles from a sol-gel-synthesis. The effect of different particle properties on the coating properties like film thickness, roughness, transparency and photocatalytic activity was investigated. Thereby, not only the primary particle size and crystal phase being the main differences of the chosen TiO2 particles but especially the secondary particle size and morphology were found to affect the coating characteristics, first of all the photocatalytic activity. Furthermore, we were able to synthesize titania nanoparticles showing consistent properties independent of the agglomerate size, outperforming the commercial products in most investigated attributes. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.