Internal anodization of porous Ti to fabricate immobilized TiO2 nanotubes with a high specific surface area
Qun Qian, Yue Lin, Zhongliang Xiong, Penghao Su, Dexiang Liao, Qizhou Dai, Lisu Chen, Daolun Feng
Abstract
In this paper, internal anodization of porous Ti was performed to fabricate immobilized TiO2 nanotubes with a high specific surface area. The results showed that complete internal anodization of porous Ti was achieved, self-ordered and open-topped TiO2 nanotube arrays were successfully formed within the whole region of porous Ti by applying high anodizing voltage, long oxidation time and enhancing mass transfer. The BET specific surface area of anodized porous Ti reached 16.96 m2/g, which was almost 60 times that before anodic oxidation. Moreover, due to the potential drop and mass transfer, the nanotube growth was larger at the front surface than the back surface, and decreased as they were inward further away from the surface. The anodized porous Ti with a high specific surface area not only benefits the designing of highly active TiO2-based photocatalysts, but also shows great potential for applications in adsorption and electrocatalysis etc.