STUDY OF ANNEALING TEMPERATURE VARIATION ON THE STRUCTURAL PROPERTIES OF DIP-COATED TiO2-SiO2 NANOSTRUCTURED FILMS

In the present research, SiO2–TiO2 nanostructure films were successfully prepared on windshields using the sol–gel technique for photocatalytic applications. To prevent the thermal diffusion of the sodium ions from the glass to TiO2 films, the SiO2 layer was pre-coated on the glass by the sol–gel method. The substrates were dipped in the sol and withdrawn with the speed of 6cm/min-1 to make a gel coating film. The coated films were dried for 2 days at 27 °C to allow slow solvent evaporation and condensation reactions due to rapid sol–gel reaction of Titania precursor. Then, the films were annealed at 100 °C for 30min and at the final temperature (500, 700 °C) for 30 min continuously. The structure and surface morphology properties, which are as a function of annealing temperature, have been studied by SEM; FE-SEM and XRD. The FE-SEM surface morphology results indicate that the particle size increases from 19 to 42 nm by increasing the annealing temperature from 500 °C to 700 °C. Likewise, XRD illustrate the crystal anatase and rutile as main phases for TiO2-SiO2 films annealed at 500 °C and 700 °C respectively. This procedure resulted in transparent, crack-free SiO2–TiO2 films.