Immobilization of titanium dioxide on PAN fiber as a recyclable photocatalyst via co-dispersion solvent dip coating

Abstract

Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fiber coated with photocatalyst titanium dioxide (P25) was successfully fabricated by a dip coating process using dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO)/ethanol (EtOH) as co-dispersion solvent. Photocatalytic performance of P25-coated PAN fibers was evaluated by degrading a model dye rhodamine B (RhB) in aqueous solution under ultraviolet (UV) light irradiation. The preparation parameters of P25-coated PAN fibers were optimized by an orthogonal design, and were found to be a P25 concentration of 0.05 g/L, a ratio of 85/15 (v/v) DMSO/EtOH, and a take-up speed of 0.5 m/min. A possible mechanism of co-dispersion solvent dip coating was proposed based on Hansen solubility parameters’ theory. The P25-coated PAN fibers prepared at the optimum conditions had high dye removal efficiency. They also showed an excellent cycling performance for dye removal of up to 99% recovery over several cycles. The coating process has little impact on both the fiber strength and the breaking strength. The breaking strength of P25-coated PAN fibers was maintained even after several cycles. This study provides an easy-to-scale-up method for preparing P25-coated PAN fibers. The obtained P25-coated PAN fibers show great potential as a low-cost, easy handling, and recyclable photocatalyst for dye effluent treatment.

Heterogeneous photocatalysis and its potential applications in water and wastewater treatment: a review

“…It has been reported that the composite shows no apparent deactivation even after 5 cycles [82]. Similarly, polyacrylonitrile fibers coated with TiO 2 have been reported to show excellent dye removal after several cycles [200]. However, some amount of the photocatalyst is lost by the water currents after every cycle.…”

“…This depends mainly on the photocatalytic reactor configuration and its build-material. For example, TiO 2 and g-C 3 N 4 are more suitable for fixed-bed type reactors because they can easily be immobilized by coating on substrates such as quartz [196], concrete [197], glass [198], Al 2 O 3 [50],limestone [199] and polymers such as polyacrylonitrile [200], polyethyleneterephthalate [201] and pulysulfone [194]. On the other hand, Fe 3 O 4 -based nanomaterials aid with the magnetic separation, and reduce the cost associated with the additional separation unit.…”

Encapsulated Cadmium Sulfide in Silicon Dioxide Porous Shells for Enhanced Photocatalytic Sustainability and Commendable Protection of Organic Carriers

“…As shown in scanning electron microcopy (SEM) images of Figure , the uncoated cotton textile has no significant change before and after under 3 days of visible light irradiation (Figure a1–a3). After photocatalyst coating on textile surface, these photocatalytic particles have been immobilized on cotton fabric due to the swell and diffusion by N‐methylmorpholine‐N‐oxide (NMMO) solution to cellulose via codispersion solvent coating method . Specifically, for CdS‐coated cotton textiles, some etched and ruptured fibers can be observed with actual damage of cotton fiber caused by photocatalysis (Figure b3).…”

Superhydrophobic and photocatalytic self-cleaning cotton fabric using flower-like N-doped TiO2/PDMS coating

“…These species can actively react with organic molecules, breaking them down into harmless products such as water and carbon dioxide (Boningari et al, 2018;Zhao et al, 2017).…”