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Updated: May 9, 2026
Highly Stable, Functional Hairy Nanoparticles and Biopolymers from Wood Fibers: Towards Sustainable Nanotechnology
Published on: July 20, 2016
Whiter, brighter, and more stable cellulose paper coated with TiO2 /SiO2 core/shell nanoparticles using a
Fei Cheng1, Mark Lorch, Seyed Mani Sajedin
1Department of Chemistry, University of Hull, Cottingham Road, Hull, HU6 7RX, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
To inhibit the photocatalytic degradation of organic material supports induced by small titania (TiO2 ) nanoparticles, four kinds of TiO2 nanoparticles, that is, commercial P25-TiO2 , commercial rutile phase TiO2 , rutile TiO2 nanorods and rutile TiO2 spheres, prepared from TiCl4 , were coated with a thin, but dense, coating of silica (SiO2 ) using a conventional sol-gel technique to form TiO2 /SiO2 core/shell nanoparticles. These core/shell particles were deposited and fixed as a very thin coating onto the surface of cellulose paper samples by a wet-chemistry polyelectrolyte layer-by-layer approach. The TiO2 /SiO2 nanocoated paper samples exhibit higher whiteness and brightness and greater stability to UV-bleaching than comparable samples of blank paper. There are many potential applications for this green chemistry approach to protect cellulosic fibres from UV-bleaching in sunlight and to improve their whiteness and brightness.
