UV Resistance of γ-Glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane/TiO2-ZrO2 hybrid nanocomposite films prepared by sol-gel method

UV resistance of hybrid nanocomposite films of gamma-Glycidoxypropyltrimethoxysilane (GPTMS)/TiO2-ZrO2 prepared by Tetrabutoxytitanate, Zirconium n-tetrabutanoxide and GPTMS via sol-gel method were analyzed by observation of the film appearance, thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), UV-visible spectroscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) before and after UV irradiation. It was found that cracks on the hybrid films increase with irradiation time, total inorganic content and the content of TiO2. The transmittance of the hybrid film increased with the increase of ZrO2 content, which blocks part of the photo catalysis effect of TiO2. When the ZrO2 content increased to equal with TiO2, UV resistance of the hybrid film approaches that of pure ZrO2. The irregular behavior of yellow index data indicates that the deterioration in transmittance is caused by cracks mainly. FTIR results show that the hybrid film of TiO2/ZrO2(3/1) (T(3)Z(1)) still retains a stronger photo catalysis effect, after UV irradiation, the peak indicating the concentration of -OH enlarged greatly, while that of the pure ZrO2 hybrid film remains unchanged.