Measurement of photocatalytic properties of thin-films using novel solid-state luminescent dyes

Measuring the activity and efficiency of photocatalytic materials is an essential approach to assessing and tuning the photocatalytical properties of semiconductors, such as TiO2 or ZnO. A fast and quantitative method to determine the activity is the solid-state degradation of luminescence acts as a benchmark for wavelength-dependent photocatalytic activity to a large variety of materials, such as glass, metals, plastics, tiles or pellets. In this work the dye thin-films were deposited under rough vacuum conditions on magnetron-sputtered titania thin-films and other photocatalytic materials such as TiO2 powder pellets, glass slides and paint. Over a period of 900 s the investigated samples were homogeneously irradiated by high- performance narrow-band LED modules at 365 nm under constant irradiance conditions (E = 1mW/cm2). The initial luminescence brake down of the simultaneous excited dye and photocatalyst was monitored under standard conditions.