Coaxial Electrospinning Method for the Preparation of TiO₂@CdS/PVA Composite Nanofiber Mat and Investigation on its Photodegradation Catalysis

Abstract

TiO2 /PVA composite nanofiber mat was prepared via an electrospinning technology. SH-TiO2 -SiO2 hybrid particles and PVA solution were injected through a coaxial syringe, yielding a composite nanofiber mat. The as-prepared SH-TiO2 -SiO2 /PVA composite nanofiber mat was immersed in Cd(2+) cation solution and S(2-) anion solution in turn. Thus, yellow TiO2 @CdS/PVA composite nanofiber mats were prepared. By adjusting the number of times a mat was immersed in the Cd(2+) and S(2-) solutions, different amounts of CdS particles attaching to the mats were obtained. Both SH-TiO2 -SiO2 /PVA and TiO2 @CdS/PVA composite nanofiber mats were employed to catalyze the photodegradation of a model dye, methylene blue. The photodegradation performance could be greatly enhanced by the introduction of CdS particles anchoring onto TiO2 particles. The photodegradation efficiency reached 99.2% within 180 min. Also, the nanofiber mat could be recycled and reused at least 10 times. The photodegradation efficiency of TiO2 @CdS/PVA composite nanofiber mats remained 68.8% for 10 cycles.

Electrospun TiO2‐Based Photocatalysts

“…TiO 2 has a relatively positive VB level, suggesting that the photoinduced holes of TiO 2 have a strong oxidation ability. Up to date, TiO 2 NF‐based photocatalysts have widely been used to photodegrade organic dyes such as methylene blue, [ 156–175 ] rhodamine B, [ 176–193 ] methyl orange, [ 194–201 ] methyl red, [ 60 ] Congo red, [ 202 ] 4‐nitrophenol, [ 124,203 ] and other organic pollutants. [ 204–211 ]…”

Multicycle photocatalytic reduction of Cr(VI) over transparent PVA/TiO2 nanocomposite films under visible light

“…However, the TiO2-glucose complex was not a stable photocatalyst since small glucose molecules could be easily degraded during photocatalysis process and thus only was used as holes scavenger. By contrast, polyhydroxylated polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) with a high polymerization degree could be used as a stable support for TiO2 photocatalyst [26,27]. More importantly, the hole scavenging efficiency was rapidly increased because of the large number of hydroxyl group on PVA macromolecule chain [28].…”

Coaxial electrospinning process toward optimal nanoparticle dispersion in polymeric matrix

“…[20][21][22][23] Moreover, this technique has been useful in the production of NP/polymer mats with improved properties such as thermal stability, photodegradation performance and superparamagnetic properties. [2,24,25] In this work, we employed coaxial electrospinning as a one-step alternative to fabricate nanoreinforced polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) featuring the dispersion of iron oxide (Fe 3 O 4 ) NP with different size distributions (monomodal or bimodal) within the polymeric fibers. Our main goal is to reach a good qualitative NP dispersion within the fibrillar network for each NP size distribution.…”