Photoinduced hydrophilic and photocatalytic response of hydrothermally grown TiO2 nanostructured thin films

It is demonstrated that nanostructured titanium (IV) oxide (TiO2) films can be deposited on glass substrates at 95 degrees C using hydrothermal growth, their properties being greatly affected by the substrate materials. Anatase TiO2 films grown on ITO for deposition period of 50 h were observed to exhibit a very efficient reversible light-induced transition to super-hydrophilicity, reaching a nearly zero contact angle. Enhanced photocatalytic activity (65%) was found for the rutile TiO2 samples grown on microscope glass, possibly due to their higher roughness with respect to anatase grown on ITO. The effect of the substrate material used is discussed in terms of the TiO2 Phase and morphology control, for the best photoinduced hydrophilic and photocatalytic performance of the samples. (C) 2009 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.