Study on Synthesis in situ and Photocatalytic Activity of TiO₂ Nanotubes Array Films

The highly ordered aligned titania nanotubes thin films were successfully prepared by liquid phase deposition(LPD)method.Anodic aluminum oxide(AAO)used as starting material was immersed in an aqueous ammonium hexafluorotitanate((NH_4)_2TiF_6)solution.The results show that anatase titania can be obtained after the thin films are annealed at 400℃for 4h.The outside diameter of the titania nanotube is about 150nm and the wall thickness of the nanotubes is approximately 25nm. Moreover,the thickness of titania nanotube array is about 5μm.The annealed TiO_2 thin films have good photocatalytic activity on the degradation of methyl blue,i.e.,methyl blue can be entirely degradated after 120nm mercury arc irradiation.