A self-cleaning and transparent TiO2 nano-structured film coating was fabricated onto a glass substrate
by electrospinning. It was found that the addition of diethanolamine (DEA) to the TiO2 precursor solution
remarkably changes the microscopic morphology of the resulting TiO2 coating. In that, as the DEA’s
amount was increased, the resulting coating changed from opaque fibers to transparent nanoparticles
under the same electrospinning conditions which was confirmed by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM).
Meanwhile, the experimental results showed that the DEA/TiO2 coating containing nanoparticles display
better optical transmittance, e.g., a maximum transmittance of over 90% was achieved around 600 nm
when the glass was coated with the nanoparticles at an electrospinning feed rate of 0.18 ml/h. The photocatalytic
properties of the particle-like TiO2 coating was studied using Congo red decay and silver ion
reduction experiments. Together these experiments proved that this novel TiO2 film/coating comprising
electrospun nanoparticles possesses excellent photocatalytic activities. Lastly, water contact angle
measurements proved that the coating is superhydrophilic.