Spray deposition of electrospun TiO2 nanoparticles with self-cleaning and transparent properties onto glass

A self-cleaning and transparent TiO2 nano-structured film coating was fabricated onto a glass substrate by electrospinning. It was found that the addition of diethanolamine (DEA) to the TiO2 precursor solution remarkably changes the microscopic morphology of the resulting TiO2 coating. In that, as the DEA's amount was increased, the resulting coating changed from opaque fibers to transparent nanoparticles under the same electrospinning conditions which was confirmed by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Meanwhile, the experimental results showed that the DEA/TiO2 coating containing nanoparticles display better optical transmittance, e.g., a maximum transmittance of over 90% was achieved around 600 nm when the glass was coated with the nanoparticles at an electrospinning feed rate of 0.18 ml/h. The photocatalytic properties of the particle-like TiO2 coating was studied using Congo red decay and silver ion reduction experiments. Together these experiments proved that this novel TiO2 film/coating comprising electrospun nanoparticles possesses excellent photocatalytic activities. Lastly, water contact angle measurements proved that the coating is superhydrophilic. (c) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.