Preparing Titania Fibers and Their Photocatalytic Activity

Abstract

Continuous titania fibers were prepared by a polytitanoxane precursor method. Polytitanoxane was synthesized through hydrolysis and polymerization reaction between partially chelated titanium isopropoxide and water without acid catalyst. Polytitanoxane, which was precipitated from an isopropanol solution by adding adequate amount of water to titanium isopropoxide, was then dried and dissolved in tetrahydrofuran. The concentrated viscous solution of polytitanoxane was considerably stable to further self-condensation and had good spinnability. The precursor fiber which was obtained by spinning the solution was calcined to form titania fibers.Two types of titania fibers were obtained under different calcination conditions from the same precursor fiber; Dense fiber with high tensile strength of higher than 1 GPa, and porous fiber with high surface area of more than 10 m2/g.Photocatalytic activity of those fibers was studied using the phenol mineralization reaction in water. The phenol degradation ability of high-surface-area titania fiber was almost the same as that of commercial titania powder for photocatalyst.

Advances in Inorganic Fibers

“…The tensile strength of this fiber measured by a single filament method was approximately 2.5 GPa. This mechanical strength is markedly superior to that of existing photo-catalytic TiO 2 fibers (<1 GPa), which were produced by a sol-gel method [42] or using polytitanosiloxanes [43]. The high strength of the titania/silica fiber is closely related to the dense structure without pores, which is caused by its higher firing temperature compared with previous TiO 2 fibers.…”

Photocatalytic Fiber with Gradient Surface Structure Produced from a Polycarbosilane and Its Applications

“…The tensile strength of this fiber measured by a single filament method was approximately 2.5 GPa. This mechanical strength is markedly superior to that of existing photocatalytic TiO 2 fibers (<1 GPa) which were produced by a sol‐gel method 15 or using polytitanosiloxanes16. The high strength of our TiO 2 fiber is closely related to the dense structure without pores, which is caused by its higher firing temperature compared to previous TiO 2 fibers.…”

Statistical optimization of process conditions for photocatalytic degradation of phenol with immobilization of nano TiO2 on perlite granules

“…The photocatalytic, photoelectrochemical and photosonochemical of phenol degradation have been reported by several research groups [1][2][3]. Many photocatalytic techniques were reported for phenol destruction in aqueous solutions, for example, novel silica gel supported TiO 2 [4], TiO 2 particulate film on indium tin oxide coated glass [5], nafion-coated TiO 2 [6], multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNT)-TiO 2 composite catalyst [7], oxidation by H 2 O 2 / TiO 2 [8] and TiO 2 fiber [9]. Also, most experimental work on aqueous systems has been performed using the photocatalyst in the form of fine particles suspended in the liquid phase.…”