Search

Titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) has been proven to be an excellent system for wettability patterning purposes because of its super hydrophilic ability and its oxidative/reductive degradation of substances when exposed to UV radiation. TiO 2 substrates upon which was deposited a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of n-octadecyltrimethoxysilane (ODS) shifts the surface to become super hydrophobic, which when subjected to UV irradiation causes the ODS compound to be degraded with the substrate turning back to be super hydrophilic. Such events allow wettability patterns to be easily created. The objective of this study was to reduce the time required to construct a wettability pattern. For this purpose, highly photoactive TiO 2 nanoparticles were coated onto a titanium plate whose surface had been previously oxidized at high temperatures in an electric furnace. The subsequent TiO 2 /Ti system was microwaved and simultaneously irradiated with ultraviolet light (UV) to further accelerate its photocatalytic activity. Using a set of photomasks and both UV and microwave irradiation, the generation of a pattern was achieved 15 times faster (2 min versus 30 min) compared to an earlier result that used only UV radiation.

The wettability efficiency of TiO 2 -coated Ti substrate wafers was improved using a microwave/UV pre-treatment method. With the assistance of microwave heating, TiO 2 substrates coating with P25 completely achieved super hydrophilic state within 5 min, which is twice as fast compared with only UV irradiation condition. Moreover, when the microwave power was increased, improvement in the wettability activity was observed. Apart from P25, coating with brookite also resulted in a good performance. The contact angle was 0° with only 10 min of irradiation.