Experimental and theoretical studies of the thermal behavior of titanium dioxide-SnO2 based composites.

In this paper we report experimental and theoretical studies concerning the thermal behavior of some organotin-Ti(IV) oxides employed as precursors for TiO(2)/SnO(2) semiconducting based composites, with photocatalytic properties. The organotin-TiO(2) supported materials were obtained by chemical reactions of SnBu(3)Cl (Bu = butyl), TiCl(4) with NH(4)OH in ethanol, in order to impregnate organotin oxide in a TiO(2) matrix. A theoretical model was developed to support experimental procedures. The kinetics parameters: frequency factor (A), activation energy, and reaction order (n) can be estimated through artificial intelligence methods. Genetic algorithm, fuzzy logic, and Petri neural nets were used in order to determine the kinetic parameters as a function of temperature. With this in mind, three precursors were prepared in order to obtain composites with Sn/TiO(2) ratios of 0% (1), 15% (2), and 30% (3) in weight, respectively. The thermal behavior of products (1-3) was studied by thermogravimetric experiments in oxygen.