Chemical Papers https://doi.org/10.1007/s11696-018-0667-4
ORIGINAL PAPER
UV light‑induced photocatalytic, antimicrobial, and antibiofilm performance of anodic TiO2 nanotube layers prepared on titanium mesh and Ti sputtered on silicon Martin Motola1 · Ewa Dworniczek2 · Leonid Satrapinskyy3 · Grzegorz Chodaczek4 · Jakub Grzesiak4 · Maroš Gregor3 · Tomáš Plecenik3 · Joanna Nowicka2 · Gustav Plesch1 Received: 15 October 2018 / Accepted: 4 December 2018 © Institute of Chemistry, Slovak Academy of Sciences 2018
Abstract The potential use of TiO2 nanotube layers as a self-sterilizing and self-cleaning material for environmental application is presented. Antimicrobial, antibiofilm and photocatalytic performance of anodic T iO2 nanotube layers under UV irradiation was investigated on titanium mesh and on Ti sputtered on silicon substrates. The nanotubes were prepared in fluoride containing ethylene glycol-based electrolyte to obtain ~ 4 µm thick nanotube layers, which were subsequently annealed at 450 °C. Structural and morphological properties of prepared T iO2 layers were characterized using X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy. In addition, their surface wettability, before and after UV irradiation, was investigated. Their photoactivity was compared to T iO2 sol–gel films of similar thickness. The highest efficiency in photocatalytic degradation of organic dye and removal of free-floating bacteria of Gram-positive Staphylococcus epidermidis was observed for TiO2 nanotube layers on titanium mesh. The highest antibiofilm performance in impairments of biofilms was reached using the T iO2 nanotubes on silicon. The obtained results on silicon substrate are promising for the development of medical devices covered by T iO2 nanotubes that would decrease the risk of infection. On the other hand, the mesh substrate covered by TiO2 nanotubes could find environmental applications such as filters in flowing photocatalytic reactors. Graphical Abstract
Keywords TiO2 · Nanotubes · Photocatalytic · Antimicrobial · Antibiofilm
* Martin Motola
[email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
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Introduction The development and application of photocatalytic processes is an active research domain in materials science (Gaya 2014). The mechanism of the photocatalytic activity is based on the formation of electron–hole (e−–h+) pairs under light irradiation, where the e −–h + pairs have an energy sufficiently high to form, in presence of water and oxygen, radicals of high oxidizing power. Since T iO2 is an n-type semiconductor with a band gap energy EBG ∼ 3.2 eV for anatase phase a significant photoresponse can only be generated by UV light (λ
