Photocatalytic fabrics based on reduced graphene oxide and TiO2 coatings

The purpose of this work is to obtain photocatalytic fabrics based on reduced graphene oxide (RGO) and TiO2 coatings on polyester fabrics. The influence of the applied number of RGO coatings on properties such as light absorption, conductivity, electroactivity and photocatalytic properties of the fabrics was established. An improvement of these properties with the number of RGO coatings applied was obtained. FESEM, EDX, XPS and FTIR-ATR showed the incorporation of the TiO2 nanoparticles on the fabrics. FTIR-ATR showed the formation of a bidentate carboxylic ligand with titanium atoms. The photocatalytic properties of the fabrics were tested with Rhodamine B dye solutions. Photocatalytic efficiency increased with the number of RGO coatings, due to the increased light absorption, and better electrical properties. The charge transfer resistance (R-ct) and its time constant (tau) decreased, indicating a better electron transfer which helps to increase the lifetime of the pair electron/hole. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Authors wish to thank to the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion (contract CTM2011-23583) for the financial support. J. Molina is grateful to the Conselleria d'Educacio, Formacio i Ocupacio (Generalitat Valenciana) for the Programa VALi+D Postdoctoral Fellowship. Electron Microscopy Service of the UPV (Universitat Politecnica de Valencia) is gratefully acknowledged for help with FESEM and EDX characterization. Timothy Vickers is gratefully acknowledged for help with English revision. Molina Puerto, J.; Fernandes, F.; Fernández Sáez, J.; Pastor, M.; Correia, A.; Souto, AP.; Carneiro, JO... (2015). Photocatalytic fabrics based on reduced graphene oxide and TiO2 coatings. Materials Science and Engineering: B. 199:62-76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mseb.2015.04.013