Hydrothermal fabrication of rutile TiO2 submicrospheres on wood surface: An efficient method to prepare UV-protective wood

In this work, wood materials with UV-resistant ability were successfully fabricated by depositing submicrometer-sized rutile TiO2 spheres on wood surface using a facile and one-pot hydrothermal method. The prepared samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transformation infrared (ATR-FTIR) techniques. ATR-FTIR spectra demonstrated that chemical bonds were formed at the interfaces between rutile TiO2 and wood owing to the presence of hydroxyl groups. Accelerated aging was used to measure the UV resistance of the original wood (OW), anatase TiO2/wood (ATW) and rutile TiO2/wood (RTW). Comparison with OW and ATW samples, RTW exhibited more UV-resistant ability due to high UV light absorption capability, superior light scattering property and high recombination of the photogenerated electron and hole of the submicrometer-sized rutile TiO2 spheres on the wood surface.