Morphological and thermal studies of mesoporous TiO2-ZrO2 and TiO2-ZrO2-polymer composites as potential self cleaning surface. (2020) - Simon, Sanu Mathew
Abstract: Inorganic-organic composites have significant importance in various fields including self cleaning displays, photocatalysis, solar energy conversion etc. The synthesis of polymer capped inorganic frameworks consisting oxides of Ti and Zr had been accomplished in a straightforward cost effective method. In this work, TiO2 -ZrO2 -Pluronic F127 composites were synthesized using sol-gel process in the presence of chelating ligand diethanolamine, which acts as a reaction inhibitor for hydrolysis and condensation of Ti and Zr alkoxide. For comparative studies, TiO2 -ZrO2 composite sample under the same atmospheric conditions were also prepared. The structural and thermal properties were investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), water contact angle measurement (WCA) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA-DTA). The textural parameters such as surface area, pore volume and pore diameter were analyzed using nitrogen sorption analysis. The water contact angle measurements have shown that the synthesized polymer-based composite material was superhydrophilic.