Promoting Photocatalytic Cleaning Efficiency of Textile Finishing Solutions with Nanoboron as a p‐Type Dopant

Abstract

Boron is a commonly used p‐type dopant for semiconductor and photonic applications. In this study, standard photocatalytic titanium dioxide (TiO2) particles were doped with nanosized boron particles and coated on textiles to bring the photocatalytic light intensity closer to the visible light range. Boron/titania nanoparticle composites were initially prepared in DI water solutions and studied for their photocatalytic response through a statistical central composite design. To determine the most effective titania and nanoboron particle blend for photocatalytic textile coating, absorbance and stain bleach analyses were performed by UV light exposure. The performance of the composite particles at the optimal concentration has also been evaluated in the finishing solution and compared with the performances of the pure titania particles. It was found that the textiles coated with 0.08 wt% anatase doped with 0.16 wt% nanoboron as a p‐type dopant provided improvement in self‐cleaning ability under the visible light range in the DI water environment. Energy band gap calculations further verified the nanoboron‐doped titania blend to have a lower energy barrier as compared with the 0.1 wt% anatase in agreement with the photocatalytic activity improvements. Nanoboron is shown to be a strong candidate as a p‐type dopant to titania for photocatalytic textile coatings.

Polymer-Particle Enhanced Visible Light Range Photocatalytic Activity on Textile Applications

“…2, finishing solution by itself did not show photocatalytic activity as observed by no change in the methylene blue color. This is consistent with the observation of no stain bleaching on the textiles which were coated only with the finishing solution in our earlier studies (Cerhan Haink and Basim, 2020). The optimal photocatalytic performance was obtained with 0.1 wt % anatase with 0.001 wt % branched titania doping as per the visual observations.…”

“…The consistency in the measured mean size with a controlled standard deviation indicates the stability of the anatase particles in both environments. We have demonstrated in the earlier studies that the titania particles are more stable in the finishing solution which has a pH of 3.52 as compared to the DI water which has a pH of ~6 (Cerhan-Haink and Basim, 2020). This is due to the fact that the isoelectric point of anatase is at pH 5.8 (McNamee et al, 2005) and hence retains more positive surface charge in the finishing solution with pH 3.52 as compared to the DI water with pH of 6.…”

“…( 1) is chosen to be 2, direct bandgap energy of material can be determined. If the n value is 1/2, the determined value is defined as the indirect bandgap value of the material (Akaltun et al, 2011;ASTAM, 2016;Cerhan-Haink and Basim, 2020).…”