Methods Nanostructured Si templates were obtained starting from p-type (1016 B/cm3), (100) Si wafers. The samples were UV oxidized and dipped in a 5% HF solution so as to obtain a clean and oxide-free Si surface. Then a thin Au layer www.selleckchem.com/products/jph203.html (2 nm) was deposited on Si at room temperature by electron beam evaporation by using high-purity (99.9%) gold pellets as source. Finally,

the samples were etched at room temperature in a solution of HF (5 M) and H2O2 (0.44 M) [17]. The templates were covered with a thin layer of TiO2 (10 nm thick), deposited by ALD, using a Beneq TFS 200 system (Beneq Oy, Espoo, Finland), with TiCl4 (99.9%) and de-ionized water as precursors, at a deposition temperature of 200°C. Nitrogen (>99.999%) was used as 17DMAG in vitro carrier gas. This sample typology will be hereafter called ‘TiO2/Si-template’. TiO2 flat films (10 nm thick) deposited on flat Si substrates were used as a reference, hereafter simply called ‘TiO2’. The structural characterization was performed

by scanning find more electron microscopy (SEM) with a field emission Zeiss Supra 25 (Carl Zeiss, Inc., Oberkochen, Germany) and by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) with a JEOL JEM-2010 F (JEOL Ltd., Akishima-shi, Japan) operated at 200 keV and equipped with a post-column Gatan GIF 2001 energy image filter (Gatan, Inc., Pleasanton, CA, USA). The photocatalytic activity of the investigated materials was tested by the degradation of two dyes: IMP dehydrogenase methylene blue (MB) and methyl orange (MO), complying with the ISO protocol [18]. The employed MB was a 0.05-wt% solution in water (code number: 319112, by Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, St. Louis, MO, USA), while the MO was a 0.1% solution (code number: 34576, by Sigma-Aldrich Corporation, St. Louis, MO, USA). The irradiation was performed with a polychromatic UV lamp (from 350 to 400 nm), with a power of 8 W (by Philips, Amsterdam, The Netherlands). Before any measurement, the samples were irradiated by the UV lamp for 50 min in order to remove the hydrocarbons from the sample surface [19]. The samples, 0.6 cm × 0.8 cm in size, were immersed in a solution (2 ml) containing

MB or MO and de-ionized water (starting concentration 1.5 × 10−5 or 1 × 10−5 M, respectively). The mixture was irradiated by the UV lamp with an irradiance of 1.1 mW/cm2. The irradiated solution was measured at regular time intervals with an UV-VIS spectrophotometer (PerkinElmer Lambda 35, PerkinElmer, Waltham, MA, USA) in a wavelength range from 500 to 800 nm for MB and from 350 to 650 nm for MO. The degradation of MB and MO was evaluated by the absorbance peak at 664 and 464 nm, respectively, in the Lambert-Beer regime [20]. The decomposition of the colorants in the absence of any catalyst materials was checked as a reference. Control experiments in the dark were conducted to clarify the contribution of the adsorption of the MB and MO at the sample surface.