Pickering Emulsions of Fluorinated TiO2: A New Route for Intensification of Photocatalytic Degradation of Nitrobenzene
International audience; Fluorination of the TiO2 surface has been often reported as a tool to increase the photocatalytic efficiency due to the beneficial effects in terms of production of oxidizing radicals. Moreover, it is shown that the unique amphiphilic properties of the fluorinated TiO2 (TiO2-F) surface allow one to use this material as a stabilizer for the formulation of Pickering emulsions of poorly soluble pollutants such as nitrobenzene (NB) in water. The emulsions have been characterized in terms of size of the droplets, type of emulsion, possibility of phase inversion, contact angle measurements, and optical microscopy. The emulsified system presents micrometer-sized droplets of…
Immobilization of single-stranded DNA fragments to solid surfaces and their repeatable specific hybridization : covalent binding or adsorption ?
Abstract The different steps of the immobilization process of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) on surfaces by means of chemical grafting have been investigated using systematic measurements of grafting and hybridization densities by means of radioactive labelling. The immobilization by chemical grafting to a dense monomolecular layer of N-hydroxysuccinimidyl ester reactive functions attached to silica plates was performed from a dilute solution of amino-terminated oligonucleotides (10 μmol/l). The slow evaporation of the solvent allowed to increase the DNA grafting density by a factor of 10. A precise control of the rinsing process that followed the immobilization reaction allowed the discrimina…
Photocatalytic degradation enhancement in pickering emulsions stabilized by solid particles of bare TiO 2
Pickering emulsions provide a new way to enhance the efficiency of photocatalytic degradation of water-insoluble pollutants. Indeed, the semiconductor solid particles dually act as the photocatalyst and stabilizer of the emulsion droplets whose size dramatically affects the photocatalytic reaction. The present work aims at the validation of this concept by using bare TiO 2 without any surface modification. Nanostructured TiO 2 has been prepared by a simple sol-gel process and characterized by X-ray diffraction, specific surface area analysis, scanning electron microscopy, and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy. The emulsions were prepared by using 1-methylnaphthalene (1-MN) as a model organic…
Surface and Electronic Features of Fluorinated TiO 2 and Their Influence on the Photocatalytic Degradation of 1-Methylnaphthalene
International audience; Surface fluorination improves the photocatalytic activity of TiO2, and the influences of various features of fluorinated TiO2 (TiO2–F) have often been discussed in the literature. The present paper addresses the changes induced by surface fluorination on the morphological, structural, surface, and electronic features of TiO2. In particular, X-ray diffraction, specific surface area analysis, and transmission and scanning electron microscopy give evidence that surface fluorination does not affect the structural properties and the morphology of TiO2 nanoparticles. In contrast, fluorination induces changes of surface and electronic properties. Chemical and thermogravimet…
Mechanism of nanocapsules formation by the emulsion-diffusion process.
International audience; A detailed investigation into the mechanisms of nanocapsule formation by means of the two stages “emulsion–diffusion” process is reported. Such widely used process is still poorly understood. An emulsion of oil, polymer and ethyl acetate is fabricated as a first step; dilution with pure water allows ethyl acetate to diffuse out from the droplets, leaving a suspension of nanocapsules at the end. It has been shown that the size of nanocapsules was related to the chemical composition of the organic phase and the size of primary emulsion through a simple geometrical relationship. As a consequence, most of the properties of the nanocapsules were decided at the emulsificat…