Highly efficient photocatalytic TiO2 coatings deposited by open air atmospheric pressure plasma jet with aerosolized TTIP precursor

A simple method to deposit photocatalytic TiO2 coatings, at a high rate (20-40 mu m s(-1)), and with a high porosity, is reported in this paper. This method, which allows the treatment of membranes (with an 800 nm pore size), is based on the introduction of a liquid precursor sprayed into an open-air atmospheric pressure plasma jet (APPJ). The photocatalytic activity of the TiO2 thin films prepared by APPJ have been compared with our best N-doped TiO2 thin films, deposited by reactive radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering, previously reported in the literature. The morphology, chemical composition, photoelectrochemical, and photocatalytic properties of the coatings have been studied in this paper. Significant control of the porosity and crystallinity was achieved by varying the deposition parameters and the annealing temperature. Under optimized conditions, the TiO2 coatings deposited by APPJ are characterized by a higher photocatalytic activity as compared to the optimized thin films deposited by RF sputtering. This difference can be explained by the higher specific surface of the APPJ coatings. Finally, the most interesting characteristic of this APPJ-liquid spray process is its capacity to treat membranes without blocking the pores, and to produce photocatalytic membranes which can efficiently combine filtration and photocatalysis for water treatment.