Spontaneous formation of highly intricate and symmetric silica nanostructures as analogue to biosilica morphogenesis

2^nd International Conference and Exhibition on Materials Science & Engineering

October 07-09, 2013 Hampton Inn Tropicana, Las Vegas, NV, USA

Jaeseok Yi, Sunsang Kwon and Won Il Park

Accepted Abstracts: J Material Sci

Abstract :

Graphene, having remarkable properties like high surface area, superior electronic and optical properties, has emerged as one of best constituent material for photovoltaic devices. The main goal of this research is to investigate the effect of graphene amount on photocatalysis of titania thin films. Graphene was synthesized by modified Hummer?s method and subsequently reduced before using for film fabrication. Titania sol was prepared which was mixed with varying amount of reduced graphene. Multilayer thin films were deposited by dip-coating on glass and ITO substrates. Resulting composite films were characterized by SEM for morphological evolution of mesoporous titania thin films and uniform dispersion of graphene, XRD for phase analysis revealing high amount of anatase and UV-Vis spectrophotometer for studying optical properties. An increase of photocatalytic activity was found with increasing graphene amount and reduction of band gap up to 2.9 eV was obtained.

Biography :

Haroon Mahmood has completed his Master?s degree in Materials and Surface Engineering from National University of Sciences and Technology, Islamabad - Pakistan. At present he is working on energy materials and fabrication of solar cells for next generation photovoltaic devices.