• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2017

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) can be deposited on various substrates using chemical vapor deposition process, which results in the formation of PDMS thin films with thickness below 5 nm. PDMS layers can be evenly deposited on surfaces of nanoparticles composed of various chemical compositions such as $SiO_2$, $TiO_2$, ZnO, C, Ni, and NiO, and the PDMS-coated surface becomes completely hydrophobic. These hydrophobic layers are highly resistant towards degradation under acidic and basic environments and UV-exposures. Nanoparticles coated with PDMS can be used in various environmental applications: hydrophobic silica nanoparticles can selectively interact with oil from oil/water mixture, suppressing fast diffusion of spill-oil on water and allowing more facile physical separation of spill-oil from the water. Upon heat-treatments of PDMS-coated $TiO_2$ under vacuum conditions, $TiO_2$ surface becomes completely hydrophilic, accompanying formation oxygen vacancies responsible for visible-light absorption. The post-annealed $PDMS-TiO_2$ shows enhanced photocatalytic activity with respect to the bare $TiO_2$ for decomposition of organic dyes in water under visible light illumination. We show that the simple PDMS-coating process presented here can be useful in a variety of field of environmental science and technology.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.59-66
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• 2005

[ $TiO_2$ ] was deposited by DC magnetron sputtering on glass surface under various sputtering parameters such as discharge power($0.6{\sim}5.2\;kW$, substrate temperature($R.T{\sim}350^{\circ}C$), Ar and $O_2$ flow ratio with $0{\sim}50\;sccm$($Ar+O_2$ 90 sccm) and about 1 mtorr of pressure. TiO-N thin film was prepared under same sputtering conditions for $TiO_2$ thin film except flow ratio($Ar+O_2+N_2$ 90 sccm). The sheet resistance of thin films deposited under these parameters was measured to analyze electronic characteristic and thin film's thickness(${\alpha}$-step), surface roughness(AFM) and formation construction(FE-SEM, XRD) were also measured to draw optimal sputtering parameters. In order to evaluate photo-activity of thin film($TiO_2$, TiO-N) made in optimal parameters for removal of pollutants, toluene among VOCs and Suncion Yellow among reactive dyes were chosen to probe organic compounds for photo-degradation. It was shown that the photo-catalytic thin films had a significant photo-activation for the chosen contaminants and especially TiO-N thin film showed maximum efficiency of 33% for toluene(5 ppm) removal in visible-light range.