Anticorrosion of WO3-Modified TiO2 Thin Film Prepared by Peroxo Sol-Gel Method

Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop a method to prepare WO3-TiO2 film which has high anticorrosion property when it was coated on type 304 stainless steel. A series of WO3-modified TiO2 sols were synthesized by peroxo-sol gel method using TiCl4 and Na2WO4 as the starting materials. TiCl4 was converted to Ti(OH)4 gel. H2O2 and Na2WO4 were added in Ti(OH)4 solution and heated at 95°C. The WO3-TiO2 sol was transparent, in neutral (pH~7) solution, stable suspension without surfactant, nano-crystallite and no annealing is needed after coating, and very stable for 2 years in stock. WO3-TiO2 sol was formed with anatase crystalline structure. These sols were characterized by XRD, TEM, and XPS. The sol was used to coat on stainless steel 304 by dip-coating. The WO3-TiO2 was anatase in structure as characterized by X-ray diffraction. There were no WO3 XRD peaks in the WO3-TiO2 sols, indicating that WO3 particles were very small, possibly incorporating into TiO2 structure, providing the amount of WO3 was very small. The TiO2 particles were rhombus shape. WO3-TiO2 had smaller size area than pure TiO2. The SEM results showed that the film coated on the glass substrate was very uniform. All films were nonporous and dense films. Its hardness reached 2 H after drying at 100°C, and reached 5 H after annealing at 400°C. The WO3-TiO2 film coated on 304 stainless steel had better anticorrosion capability than the unmodified TiO2 film under UV light illumination. The optimum weight ratio of TiO2: WO3 was 100:4.