title: A smart ink for the assessment of low activity photocatalytic surfaces.
abstract: The azo dye, basic blue 66 (BB66) is used in a photocatalyst activity indicator ink (paii) to assess the activity of low activity photocatalytic surfaces, such as commercial photocatalytic tiles and silicone contaminated self-cleaning glass. The BB66 paii is shown to respond much faster than a previously reported, resazurin (Rz) based paii, i.e. the use of a BB66 paii on low activity self-cleaning tiles was found to be >6 times faster than the Rz paii. The BB66 paii is also shown to be effective at assessing the activity of piece of commercial self-cleaning glass contaminated with a coating of silicone, on which the Rz ink, in contrast, failed to show any significant change in colour over the same time period.
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Queen's University Belfast, Stranmillis Road, Belfast, BT9 5AG, UK. andrew.mills@qub.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mills
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: O'Rourke
authors.forename: Nathan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wells