Photocatalysis and Photoinduced Hydrophilicity of Various Metal Oxide Thin Films

Thin films of various metal oxides were prepared on glass substrates by a wet process to determine their photocatalytic ability to decompose adsorbed dye and to evaluate their photoinduced hydrophilicity under UV illumination. The metal oxides used in this study are classified into four categories based on their behavior over the two photochemical reaction: (1) active in both photocatalytic oxidation and photoinduced hydrophilicity (TiO2, SnO2, ZnO); (2) only active in photocatalytic oxidation (SrTiO3); (3) only active in photoinduced hydrophilicity (WO3, V2O5); (4) and inactive over both processes (CeO2, CuO, MoO3, Fe2O3, Cr2O3, In2O3). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy revealed that oxygen defect sites were…