Air–water interfacial titania film self-assembled by CTAB in the presence of gelatin

Two highly orientated titania films are fabricated by self-assembled procedure at the air–water interface. The focus is the rational design of metal oxide films at this interface via a self-assembly route in which cation surfactant is used to direct the nucleation growth, and morphology of the oxide. The type of self-assembled titania-based film, prepared with cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as the template and gelatin as the assistant at air–water interface, has been characterized by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Remarkably, in the presence of gelatin titania film made up of well-dispersed nano-particles could be prepared due to excellent stabilization of the gelatin. Raman as additional measurement, discussion about self-assembly competitions has been provided to this investigation.