Teruki Takayasu

High-performance photocatalyst prepared from metallic titanium

TiO2 photocatalysts are attractive and promising materials due to their excellent properties such as high photocatalytic activity, stability and non-toxicity. Therefore, TiO2 photocatalyst has applied into various fields such as environmental purifications. The major forms of TiO2 photocatalysts are fine particles in order to obtain high surface areas. In order to fabricate commercial applications, the coating procedures using binder chemicals must be employed. However, the fine TiO2 particles slightly scattered at the surface, since most particles are buried in binder chemicals, leading to obtaining poor photocatalytic activity. TiO2 films can be easily formed on a metallic titanium substrate by anodization. However, the amorphous TiO2 films with no photocatalytic activities are usually obtained in conventional anodization. We have successfully obtained the high performance photocatalytic TiO2 films by using combined treatment of pre-nitridation and anodization. The photocatalytic TiO2 films show the high photocatalytic activities to decompose the various volatile organic compounds such as trichloroethylene, isopropyl alcohol, acetaldehyde, and so on.