Development of high dispersed TiO₂paste for transparent screen-printable self-cleaning coatings on glass

This paper reports a cheap and facile method to fabricate transparent self-cleaning coatings on glass by screen-printing high dispersed TiO2paste. Three kinds of ZrO2beads with diameter of 2, 1, and 0.1-0.2 mm were utilized to investigate their influence on the grinding and dispersion of the commercial TiO2powder in the ball mill. From the SEM images, surface profiler and transmittance spectrum it could be demonstrated that the smallest ZrO2bead with the diameter of 0.1-0.2 mm was the best candidate to disperse the TiO2powder into nanoscale size to make the high dispersed TiO2paste which was the key factor to achieve a smooth, high transparent TiO2coating. The surface wettability measurement showed that all the screen-printed coatings had super hydrophilic surfaces, which was independent to the surface morphology. However, the coating with the highest transparency showed the lowest photocatalytic activity which is mainly due to the light loss.