Research Paper: Investigation of Surface and Photocatalytic Properties of Electrodeposited Titanium Dioxide Thin Films

In this paper, the titanium dioxide thin films were electrodeposited on the aluminum substrate. In electrodeposition, a pure or alloy material is deposited on a conductive or a semiconductor substrate from a solution by the passage of an electric current via two or three electrodes. The structure of TiO2 thin film with 1000 nm thickness was studied by X-ray diffraction. The crystallite size of the thin film was obtained about 41 nm via Debye– Scherrer equation. Also, the crystallite size and strain of lattice calculated by Williamson– Hall equation were about 46 nm and 0.004, respectively. The film surface roughness was investigated using an atomic force microscope (AFM). The logarithmic plots of roughness as a function of scan length for titanium dioxide films indicate that the film roughness increases as the film thickness increases. The electrodeposited TiO2 films exhibit anomalous scaling roughness behavior on the film thickness. The photocatalyst properties of TiO2 thin films were investigated via photodegradation of two azo dyes, acid blue and acid black, under ultraviolet irradiation. The absorbance spectra indicated that the titanium dioxide thin film with 1000 nm thickness degradation 94 % both acid blue and acid black in 60 min. Also, the increasing film thickness increased degradation at the same time.