Modeling of aerosol deposition of titania thin films

The size-controlled TiO2 particles are usually employed in semiconductor de vices, catalysis and photo-catalysis, adsorption and optical technology. In this work, the kinetics of the aerosol process involving the precursor tet raisopropyl orthotitanate (TPT) and water as reactants kept in supercritica l conditions (using CO2 as solvent) and a detailed description of the fluid dynamic variables coupled with the statistical distribution of the particl es inside the reactor are investigated. A turbulent diffusive flow is force d into the reactor to guarantee a complete conversion of the reactants and the production of small diameter particles. Furthermore, the particle forma tion can be well represented by means of the general dynamic equation (GDE) . To allow a coupling between the solution of the fluid dynamic fields and the representation of the particle evolution within the reactor, the method of moments was applied to GDE to determine the most important statistical variables of a particle. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved .