Preparation and Photocatalytic Performances of WO₃/TiO₂ Composite Nanofibers

Abstract

The use of sunlight for photocatalytic oxidation is an ideal strategy, but it is limited by factors such as insufficient light absorption intensity of the photocatalyst and easy recombination of photogenerated electron holes. TiO2 is favored by researchers as an environment-friendly catalyst. In this paper, TiO2 is combined with WO3 to obtain a nanofiber with excellent catalytic performance under sunlight. The WO3/TiO2 composite nanofibers were synthesized by using the electrospinning method. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis indicated that WO3 was successfully integrated onto the surface of TiO2. The photodegradation performance and photocurrent analysis of the prepared nanofibers showed that the addition of WO3 really improved the photocatalytic performance of TiO2 nanofibers, methylene blue (MB) degradation rate increased from 72% to 96%, and 5% was the optimal composite mole percentage of W to Ti. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), UV-Vis diffuse reflectance spectra (UV-Vis DRS), and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis further characterized the properties of 5% WO3/TiO2 nanofibers. The H2 generation rate of 5% WO3/TiO2 nanofibers was 107.15 μmol·g−1·h−1, in comparison with that of TiO2 nanofibers (73.21 μmol·g−1·h−1) under the same condition. The 5% WO3/TiO2 produced ·OH under illumination, which played an important role in the MB degradation. Also, the enhanced photocatalytic mechanism was also proposed based on the detailed analysis of the band gap and the active species trapping experiment. The results indicated that the effective separation of Z-scheme photogenerated electron-hole pairs and transfer system constructed between TiO2 and WO3 endowed the excellent photocatalytic activity of 5% WO3/TiO2 nanofibers.

Review of the recent advances on the fabrication, modification and application of electrospun TiO2 and ZnO nanofibers for the treatment of organic pollutants in wastewater

“…The fabricated nanofibers were composed of carbon, titanium, zinc and oxygen elements, demonstrating the coexistence of ZnO and TiO 2 in the samples (Chen et al, 2016). Moreover, numerous researchers have also reported on various composite nanofibers of TiO 2 with other semiconductors like SnO 2 (Shi et al, 2014;Han et al, 2020;Wang and Cheng, 2021). The fabrication of composite nanofibers with ZnO and other semiconductors has also been extensively reported (Yan et al, 2015;Zhao et al, 2015;Naderi et al, 2019).…”

Nanocrystalline Titanium Dioxide Dipped with AlCl2 as a Humidity Sensors

“…All the peaks are perfectly match with Periclase TiO2 nanostructure, which indicates that Periclase TiO2 nanoparticles obtained. No other peaks were detected in spectrum within detection limit of XRD instrument, indicating the pure periclase TiO2 Nanomaterial is synthesized [19][20][21][22][23][24][25].…”

“…Hence, the sample as shows the noticeable change in resistance between the values in between humidity range 40 -80 % RH. [19][20] -…”

Review on the Properties of Boron-Doped Diamond and One-Dimensional-Metal-Oxide Based P-N Heterojunction

“…WO 3 is considered as another candidate material for applications in electronics [ 7 , 107 ]. 1D WO 3 nanostructures (such as NRs, NWs and nanoneedles) have been used in photocatalytic applications [ 108 , 109 ], sensor switching devices [ 110 ], gas sensors [ 111 , 112 ] and UV photodetectors [ 2 ]. Because of the excellent performance of 1D WO 3 and BDD, it is worth combining them in 1D n-WO 3 /p-BDD heterojunction to provide new applications in electronics, especially at higher temperatures.…”