Green water-based fabrication of SiO_2-TiO_2 aerogels with superhydrophobic and photocatalytic properties and their application on cotton fabric

摘要

In this work, a green, simple, low-cost, and highly effective sol-gel method was used to successfully fabricate water-based SiO2-TiO2 aerogels with the help of surfactant by the incorporation of TiO2 into methyltrimethoxysilane-based SiO2 sol. The surface morphologies, chemical composition, physical properties, wettability and photocatalytic activity of SiO2-TiO2 aerogels were characterized by Fourier transformed infrared (FT-IR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), water contact angle and ultraviolet-visible absorption spectrum measurements. When the molar ratio of Si to Ti was 10:1, the SiO2-TiO2 aerogel samples showed not only low bulk density (0.122 g cm(-3)) and high porosity (96.11%), but also the high-efficient photodegradation ratio of 98.30% under UV light for 150 min. The obtained SiO2-TiO2 aerogels were photocatalytically active and superhydrophobic with the water contact angle (WCA) of 152 degrees, showing the promising potential wide application. Moreover, the superhydrophobic and photocatalytic properties of the SiO2-TiO2 aerogels coated cotton fabric were also investigated. The coated cotton fabric not merely possessed antifouling, liquid-repellent and self-cleaning capabilities due to its superhydrophobic property, but also performed the considerable photocatalytic activity by the decomposition of methylene blue (MB) and Rhodamine B (RhB) under ultraviolet (UV) exposure.