Morphological Analysis of Ag Doped on TiO2/Ti Prepared via Anodizing and Thermal Oxidation Methods

Abstract

In this work, we present the morphology analysis of TiO2/Ti prepared via anodizing and thermal oxidation (TO) methods and doped by Ag-TiO2 sol-gel nanocomposites through liquid phase deposition (LPD) technique. The comparative morphology of both semiconductors has been observed to inform the catalysis preparation for better morphology structures to the photocatalytic performance. Based on these results, we report that the TiO2/Ti prepared via anodizing method exhibits TiO2 nanotubes arrays (TNTAs) formed like honeycomb structures, while the TiO2/Ti TO (TTO) has diverse size structures. The neat arrangement of TNTAs has a larger surface area and pore volume than TTO structures, which can expose more adsorption and reaction sites, resulting in higher catalytic activity. Uniquely, both semiconductors, after coated by Ag-TiO2 sol-gel, show lamellar sediments covering the surface of TNTAs and TTO. We believe that the anodizing method is a good ability for photocatalysis compared with TTO in terms of small surface area and nanosize structures.