Black titania composite films for energy storage applications

Black titania has captured the attention of scientists in various fields of materials science due to its intriguing electronic properties, which stem from a high level of surface defects. These defects yield a heavily disordered local structure with multiple local charges that elicit a high degree of chemical activity and electronic transport. Due to their structural and electronic properties, black titania composites have been explored for various energy-related applications. Moreover, black titania exhibits favourable interactions with biopolymers such as cellulose and chitin nanocrystals—the first and second most abundant biopolymers on Earth—due to its different functional groups. That and their atomic arrangement make them ideal for battery or supercapacitor applications. However, there remains significant room for experimentation and optimization of composite films that combine the advantages of both black titania and biopolymers. With this underlying motivation, we report the fabrication and optimization of black titania and biopolymer films aimed at energy storage applications. Optimization was needed in order to improve their quality and mechanical properties. Hydrothermal treatment was then used to obtain the black titania composites. The final products were characterized using various techniques, including Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), and Raman spectroscopy, among others. The results also include the evaluation of the film for potential energy storage applications.