Cost-effective fabrication of perdurable electrodeposited TiO۲ nano-layers on stainless steel electrodes applicable to photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue

چکیده مقاله

Titanium oxide nano-layers were fabricated by a direct electrodeposition method, including Ti as anode and stainless steel as cathode in a non-aqueous media. The applied voltage, electrodeposition time and amount of water in the electrolyte were taken as control parameters to obtain highly stable nano-layers. The prepared samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, ellipsometric spectroscopy and energy dispersive X-ray analysis. The fabricated samples showed remarkably high stability and acceptable photocatalytic behavior towards the photodegradation of methylene blue (MB). The best result found for degradation of MB is obtained by nano-layer electrodeposited at 15 V for 30 min. These nano-layers could be reused at least 30 times without any perceptible loss of the photocatalytic activity. The attractive features of this simple process are operational simplicity, decrease of precursors consumption, photocatalytic performance of thin layers without any heat treatment (no annealing is required), and, above all, high stability of thin layers in both static and flowing environments, which make it a useful strategy for the degradation of the pollutants such as MB.