Standardized Figures of Merit for Proper Benchmarking of Photocatalytic Inactivation of Bacteria Using Thin Films Based on TiO Nanostructures.

The study of photocatalysts fixed to surfaces for the inactivation of bacteria in wastewater has increased in recent years. However, there are no standardized methods to analyze the photocatalytic antibacterial activity of these materials, and no systematic studies have attempted to relate this activity to the number of reactive oxygen species generated during UV-light irradiation. Additionally, studies regarding photocatalytic antibacterial activity are usually carried out with varying pathogen concentrations, UV light doses, and catalyst amounts, making it difficult to compare results across different materials.

Enhanced photocatalytic bacterial inactivation of atomic-layer deposited anatase-TiO thin films on rutile-TiO nanotubes.

In this work, experimental conditions were established to fabricate self-ordered rutile-TiO nanotube arrays, coated with a conformal anatase-TiO thin layer using atomic layer deposition. E. coli inactivation tests showed a considerable increase in photocatalytic activity using rutile-TiO nanotubes coated with anatase-TiO compared to that using single rutile or anatase TiO nanotubes only.