Surface Compositional, Structural and Optical Properties of Nanohybrid TiO2/ZnO Coated Silicone Surface

This paper reports on preparation and characterizations of nanohybrid TiO2/ZnO using sol-gel spin-coating techniques. The study involved of modification band-gap energy of Titanium dioxide (TiO2) at different precursor molecular concentration of Zinc oxide (ZnO). The Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) for morphological characterization showed the existence of TiO2 and ZnO particles at 20 nm scale of magnification. The compositional of both particles were then confirmed using Energy Disperse Analyzer X-Ray (EDAX) analysis which indicates the elements of Ti, O and Zn exhibited EDAX spectras at about 0.5 and 1.0 keV while silicone (Si) at 1.75 keV. The X-Ray diffraction (XRD) characterized the structural properties of anatase and rutile for TiO2, and zincite for ZnO, then crystallite size for both elements. AT optimum molar concentration ratio of nanohybrid TiO2/ZnO is 1:4 (0.20M), the crystallite size, d, is 23.71 nm with peak of anatase found at diffraction angle of 48.05° and 62.50° while at 33.25° and 55.06° is rutile phase, respectively. We have found the distribution of nanohybrid TiO2/ZnO particles dispersed homogeneously since the particles were not bonded together with increasing ZnO molar concentration. From Ultra-Violet/Visible-near-infrared spectroscopy (UV-Vis-NiR), we have found the optical band-gap energy of nanohybrid TiO2/ZnO was increased at 3.38 eV, while the transmittance percentage is 88.67%. This studied was successfully improved the optical band-gap energy of TiO2 and the results suggests for improvement of optical band-gap energy TiO2.