STRUCTURAL INVESTIGATION OF THE SILICA TITANIA GEL GLASS-TRANSITION

Vitreous silica containing titania has received considerable attention due to its anomalous thermal expansion behaviour, together with high optical quality. The effect and the role of TiO2 in the properties of glass are directly correlated with the structural position of titanium; thus several attempts have been made to elucidate the structural aspects of gels and glasses containing titania. Several SiO2-TiO2 gels containing up to 30 mol% TiO2, prepared using (i) normal drying; (ii) supercritical drying in alcohol; (iii) supercritical drying in CO2 were studied in this work. The aim of this work is to establish the titanium coordination during thermal treatments during the gel/glass system evolution. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and dilatometric analysis have been used to detect the presence of a crystal phase of TiO2 (anatase) in gel/glass samples. The crystal size of anatase was evaluated using the Scherrer relation from XRD patterns. Infrared and diffuse reflectance spectroscopy in the UV-visible region have been used to elucidate the structural aspects and the electronic transitions due to different titanium coordination. These results indicate that drying conditions strongly influence the silicon-oxygen-titanium structure.