Preparation, Characterization and Application of Self-Organized Titanium Oxide - Nanotubes | TI- NANOTUBES Project | Fact Sheet | FP6 | CORDIS

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Electrochemical nano-technology on titanium will be used for anodic porosification with the purpose of achieving self-organized porous TiO2 with a similar degree of order as porous Al2O3 and Si. The results obtained recently in this area have shown that there is a broad range of systems that can be porosified-showing variations regarding tube dimensions, orientation, conformation and morphology.

The key mechanisms leading to self-ordering will be identified in order to understand better the driving forces for the porosification process. The properties of those Ti-Nanotube systems and their photo-electrochemical behaviour will be investigated, particularly in order to exploit self-organized porous TiO2 for solar-energy conversion applications. The effect of doping and dye sensitisation will be studied in detail and the question whether self-organized porous TiO2 layers (i.e. TiO2 nanotubes) have properties superior to currently use nano-structured systems produced by TiO2 nano-particle sintering will be determined. The project clearly fits into the activity code structure. Within the activity, it directly addresses the area NMP-2004-3.4.1.3-1.

As explained in the call for the area, there is an increasing need to develop novel functional and structural materials of superior performance for industry by controlling their nano-structure. This will include technologies for their production, characterisation and processing. All of these three requirements are covered by the proposed work which has a major potential in three main areas: fundamental research on the nanoporous TiO2 structures (self- organisation effects together with their mechanisms); approaches to designing new titanium-based systems that have enhanced properties in terms of their application and use in the field of nano-technology; and accessibility of the produced systems for a direct investigation of their technological importance.