Development and investigation of sol–gel solutions for the formation of TiO2 coatings

We show a technological approach for the sol–gel processing of stabilized xerogel colloidal titanium oxide films. Glycerol was used as a drying control additive agent. Glycerol helped in stabilizing the solution. The thermal transformation of a xerogel film was studied by differential thermal analysis (DTA) and powder X-ray diffraction. The optical index of the annealed coatings was evaluated using UV–VIS–NIR spectrophotometry. The results showed that a nanocrystalline titania anatase film of high optical quality (n=2.34 at 600 nm) can be obtained by the sol–gel process.