Electrophoretic deposition of various sizes titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles
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Date
2016-06
Authors
Nur Hafizah Mohd Patri
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Abstract
The importance of titanium dioxide (TiO2) as the main component for its potential applications in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), sensors, photocatalytic and optoelectronic devices, is highlighted by the increasing number of systems in which TiO2 is being widely used. Many of the applications of TiO2 require the manufacture of thin or thick films and layered structures. In this regard, electrophoretic deposition (EPD) has gained increasing attention over the last few years to synthesize TiO2 nanoparticles in the production of layers, films and coatings. This research was focusing on the effect of TiO2 nanoparticles with different crystallite sizes on the deposition behaviour of TiO2 nanoparticles during EPD technique. TiO2 nanoparticles were successfully synthesized by sol-gel method using titanium(IV) isopropoxide as precursor. In order to get variation of TiO2 nanoparticles crystallite size, the effect of pH and molar ratio of titanium alkoxide to water were study. The synthesized TiO2 nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) to verify the presence of phases and determine the crystallite size. The TiO2 suspension were prepared by using non-aqueous solvent of alcohol and been characterized using Malven Zetasizer and Ultraviolet-visible spectrometer (UV-Vis). It was found that the zeta potential of TiO2 suspension ranged from +25.0 to +41.1 mV and the energy band gap ranged from 3.40 to 3.56 eV for nanoparticles size 8.66 to 13.92 nm. The EPD was performed at constant applied voltage of 10 V by DC power supply for 10 minutes. The morphology and thickness of deposited TiO2 were analysed by using optical microscope. It was identified that smallest crystallite size (8.66 nm) has lower a thickness which is 7.3 μm.