Photocatalytic behaviour of anodised titanium using different cathodes

ABSTRACT

In the last decades, titanium dioxide (TiO₂) has been widely researched because of its applications in photocatalytic environmental pollution removal and in hydrogen generation. Hence, this work deals with the synthesis of titanium dioxide by anodising titanium sheets, however using different cathodes, which may induce differences in the composition and structure of the obtained oxide layers so that these suspected differences can be observed. All specimens were equally thermally treated after anodising to enhance their photocatalytic activity, since this step allows the titanium dioxide to crystallise. Their morphology and crystal structure were characterised by X-ray diffraction and Fourier transform infrared, and optical properties were characterised by ultraviolet–visible absorption spectroscopy. Furthermore, tests of their photocatalytic properties in the degradation of organic dyes were performed in order to have a first evaluation. Indeed, differences in the photocatalytic behaviour of the anodised specimens using different cathodes were found and evaluated.

KEYWORDS:

• Cathode
• building
• anodising
• titanium
• photocatalysis
• semiconductor

Acknowledgements

This article has been developed within the framework of a PhD project from the Doctorate Program ‘Technologic Innovation in Building’ at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. The project has been supported by the Department of Polymers of the School of Industrial Engineering and the research group ‘Characterization and analysis of materials’ and by the School of Building Engineering of Madrid from the Universidad Politécnica Madrid. Special thanks must be mentioned to the Erasmus Program and the Social Council of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), which financed stays in Italy and in the United States, and to technicians from the CSIC (Alfonso, Eugenio and Sergio). Moreover, Xiaobo Chen thanks the financial support from the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Missouri − Kansas City.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.