A facile approach for high surface area electrospun TiO2 nanostructures for photovoltaic and photocatalytic applications

Abstract

A rice-shaped TiO2-ZnO composite was prepared by electrospinning a mixture comprising the precursors of TiO2 and ZnO in polyvinyl acetate polymer dissolved in N,N-dimethyl acetamide. The electrospun nanofibers upon heat treatment in air resulted in collapse of the continuous fiber morphology and the formation of the rice-shaped TiO2-ZnO composite. The TiO2-ZnO composite was then treated with dilute acetic acid under hydrothermal conditions to etch ZnO from the TiO2-ZnO composite to get coral-shaped anisotropic TiO2. The structural anisotropy of TiO2 produced by the selective etching of ZnO resulted in a high surface area of 148 m(2) g(-1) for the TiO2. The initial and final materials were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, Raman and XPS spectroscopies, powder X-ray diffraction and BET surface area measurements. The utility of the anisotropic TiO2 in photovoltaics and photocatalysis was explored. Dye-sensitized solar cells fabricated using the TiO2 showed a conversion efficiency of 6.54% as against 4.8% for a control experiment with the rice-shaped TiO2. The anisotropic TiO2 also showed good photocatalysis in the degradation of methyl orange dye and phenol.

Plasma treated water – A promising electrolyte to produce nanoporous titanium dioxide nanotubes

“…The Ti 2p peaks in the samples were detected around the binding energies of 459 and 464 eV, which correspond to the Ti 4+ (Ti 2p 3/2 and Ti 2p 1/2 ) oxidation state. The de‐convoluted oxygen peaks around 530 and 532 eV correspond to the oxygen in TiO 2 and surface adhered OH groups, respectively …”

A novel hierarchical homogeneous nanoarchitecture of TiO2 nanosheets branched TiO2 nanosheet arrays for high efficiency dye-sensitized solar cells

“…TiO 2 has been accepted as a promising candidate for use in photoelectrochemical conversions including environmental photocatalysis, solar fuels production and dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) [1][2][3][4][5]. As one special kind of solar cell, DSSC possesses advantages of low cost and ease of fabrication compared to traditional silicon solar cells [6].…”

Single step hydrothermal synthesis of hierarchical TiO2 microflowers with radially assembled nanorods for enhanced photovoltaic performance

“…13 In recent years, the control over the morphology of metal oxide has attracted great attention. TiO 2 with different morphology such as nanoparticle, nanotube, nanorods, nanobelts, microsphere, nanobers have been prepared by sol-gel method, [14][15][16] electrochemical anodic oxidation, 17,18 hydrothermal method, [19][20][21][22][23][24] electrospinning method, 25 chemical vapour deposition 26,27 and spray pyrolysis technique. 28 For instance, the aforesaid the 1D nanostructure possess low internal surface area resulting poor light harvesting and low conversion efficiency.…”