preparation of super-hydrophilic sio2-tio2 thin film for photocatalyticapplication

Silicon dioxide-titanium dioxide (sio2-tio2) thin films with super-hydrophilic properties andphotocatalytic activity were prepared on the glass substrates by a simple dip-coating method.morphological, structural and optical properties of the sio2-tio2 thin films were characterizedby using field emission scanning electron microscopy (fesem), x-ray diffraction (xrd)patterns, and uv-vis spectroscopy. the xrd patterns indicate decrease of the crystallite sizefrom 51.0 nm to 22.7 nm. optical measurements were used to calculate band gap of tio2 whichreduced from 3.13 ev to 2.63 ev with addition of sio2. water contact angle (wca)measurements showed that sio2-tio2 thin film has super-hydrophilic property. uponinvestigating the photocatalytic activity, an improved performance compared to tio2 in terms ofhigher efficiency (~100%) and rate (~0.023 min-1) in degradation of methylene blue (mb) undervisible light was achieved.