Speaker
Description
Metal oxide interfaces are suitable functional materials for various energy applications. For example, TiO2 can act not only as an anode material in new generation photovoltaic and energy storage technol-ogies, but also in the photocatalytic production of hydrogen. For such applications, a controlled mor-phology on distinct length scales is particularly important to fulfill optimal performance conditions. Furthermore, a high interfacial area and, hence, a high surface-to-volume ratio of nanostructured TiO2 is beneficial for devices. Industrial-relevant deposition methods, such as spray coating, are applicable to fabricate intended morphologies by low-cost solution processing via diblock copolymer-directed sol-gel synthesis. When it comes to an industrial scale, however, limiting factors affecting sustainability are the commonly involved organic solvents. Water-soluble biopolymers can replace synthetic copol-ymers to facilitate sustainable production. The bovine whey protein ß-lactoglobulin (ß-lg) can act as a template in water-based TiO2 synthesis forming aggregates of different structures by denaturing at dif-ferent pH values. In this work, biohybrid films are obtained from solutions with decreasing pH using spray deposition. Bulk and surface-sensitive grazing-incidence small-angle neutron scattering (GISANS) investigations yield an understanding of the influence of pH on the biohybrid film’s mor-phologies. Real-space imaging complement the obtained results.
