Browsing by Author "Munoz-Acevedo, Amner"

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    Adsorption and Photocatalytic Degradation of Methylene Blue on TiO2 Thin Films Impregnated with Anderson-Evans Al-Polyoxometalates: Experimental and DFT Study
    (2023) Duran, Freider; Diaz-Uribe, Carlos; Vallejo, William; Munoz-Acevedo, Amner; Schott, Eduardo; Zarate, Ximena
    In this work, we fabricated a TiO2 thin film,and thesame film was modified with an Anderson aluminum polyoxometalate (TiO2-AlPOM). Physical-chemical characterization of thecatalysts showed a significant change in morphological and opticalproperties of the TiO2 thin films after surface modification.We applied the kinetic and isothermal models to the methylene blue(MB) adsorption process on both catalysts. The pseudo-second ordermodel was the best fitting model for the kinetic results; qe (mg/g) was 11.9 for TiO2 thin films and 14.6for TiO2-AlPOM thin films, and k (2) (g mg(-1) min(-1)) was 16.3 x10(-2) for TiO2 thin films and 28.2 x10(-2) for TiO2-AlPOM thin films. Furthermore,the Freundlich model was suitable to describe the isothermal behaviorof TiO2, K (F) (5.42 mg/g), and1/n (0.312). The kinetics of photocatalytic degradationwas fitted using the Langmuir-Hinshelwood model; k (ap) was 7 x 10(-4) min(-1) for TiO2 and 13 x 10(-4) min(-1) for TiO2-AlPOM. The comparative studyshowed that TiO2 thin films reach a 19.6% MB degradationunder UV irradiation and 9.1% MB adsorption, while the TiO2-AlPOM thin films reach a 32.6% MB degradation and 12.2% MB adsorptionon their surface. The surface modification improves the morphological,optical, and photocatalytic properties of the thin films. Finally,the DFT study supports all the previously shown results.
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    Antimicrobial Activity against Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. dianthi of TiO2/ZnO Thin Films under UV Irradiation: Experimental and Theoretical Study
    (2024) Quinones, Cesar; Posada, Martha; Hormiga, Angie; Pena, Julian; Diaz-Uribe, Carlos; Vallejo, William; Munoz-Acevedo, Amner; Roa, Vanesa; Schott, Eduardo; Zarate, Ximena
    We deposited bare TiO2 and TiO2/ZnO thin films to study their antimicrobial capacity against Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. dianthi. The deposit of TiO2 was performed by spin coating and the ZnO thin films were deposited onto the TiO2 surface by plasma-assisted reactive evaporation technique. The characterization of the compounds was carried out by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and powder X-ray diffraction techniques. Furthermore, density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent DFT (TDDFT) calculations were performed to support the observed experimental results. Thus, the removal of methylene blue (MB) by adsorption and posterior photocatalytic degradation was studied. Adsorption kinetic results showed that TiO2/ZnO thin films were more efficient in MB removal than bare TiO2 thin films, and the pseudo-second-order model was suitable to describe the experimental results for TiO2/ZnO (q(e) = 12.9 mg/g; k(2) = 0.14 g/mg/min) and TiO2 thin films (q(e) = 12.0 mg/g; k(2) = 0.13 g/mg/min). Photocatalytic results under UV irradiation showed that TiO2 thin films reached 10.9% of MB photodegradation (k = 1.0 x 10(-3) min(-1)), whereas TiO2/ZnO thin films reached 20.6% of MB photodegradation (k = 3.9 x 10(-3) min(-1)). Both thin films reduced the photocatalytic efficiency by less than 3% after 4 photocatalytic tests. DFT study showed that the highest occupied molecular orbital-lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (HOMO-LUMO) energy gap decreases for the mixed nanoparticle system, showing its increased reactivity. Furthermore, the chemical hardness shows a lower value for the mixed system, whereas the electrophilicity index shows the biggest value, supporting the larger reactivity for the mixed nanoparticle system. Finally, the antimicrobial activity against F. oxysporum f. sp. dianthi showed that bare TiO2 reached a growth reduction of 68% while TiO2/ZnO reached a growth reduction of 90% after 250 min of UV irradiation.