Photocatalysis: Visible Light Sensitized Titanium Oxynitride and its Major Applications to Water Purification
This research focuses on the purifications of earth water and air system agricultural industrial ecological systems, many disciplinary subjects have been able to aid in environmental clean up by use of photocatalysis. Photocatalysis oxidizes organic compounds such as harmful oxidative pollutants in water and air systems thereby, destroying pathogenic bacteria (e.g. endtoxin Escheria Coli (E. coli). The catalysts that are involved in this research are a thin film Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) and Titanium Oxy Nitride (TiON), which is placed on glass and silicate substrates. These catalysts are sensitized by exposure to Ultraviolet (UV) and Visible (Vis) light, respectively. In this research we are doping the TiO2 with Nitrogen to shift the absorption from UV to visible. TiO2 is comprised of two crystal lattice structures, namely anatase and rutile. TiO2x-Nx is synthetically prepared on silicate wafer substrates or glass to create a thin-film coating membrane, by using ion-beam deposition. TiO2x-Nx is characterized by the following microscopy methods: XRD (x-ray diffraction), XPS (X-ray photospectroscopy), AFM (atomic force microscopy) and TEM (transmission electron microscopy). Implications for further research include self-cleaning and anti-fogging coatings, conventional glass cleaning, clinical applications, and self-cleaning ceramics.
School:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Department:
Material Science and Engineering
Research Advisor:
Dr. Jian-Ku Shang
Department of Research Advisor:
Water Campus/ Material Science and Engineering
Year of Publication:
2004