Cone-shaped titanate immobilized on polyacrylonitrile nanofibers: hierarchical architecture for effective photocatalytic activity

Mingyue Zhu; Chuanxiang Qin; Jian-Jun Wang; Jun Sun; Lixing Dai

doi:10.1039/c9dt04934g

Cone-shaped titanate immobilized on polyacrylonitrile nanofibers: hierarchical architecture for effective photocatalytic activity

Dalton Trans. 2020 Apr 7;49(13):4067-4077. doi: 10.1039/c9dt04934g. Epub 2020 Mar 5.

Authors

Mingyue Zhu¹, Chuanxiang Qin, Jian-Jun Wang, Jun Sun, Lixing Dai

Affiliation

¹ College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China. qinchuanxiang@suda.edu.cn dailixing@suda.edu.cn.

PMID: 32134065
DOI: 10.1039/c9dt04934g

Abstract

A new photocatalytic composite material, based on flexible functional polyacrylonitrile nanofibers (denoted as f-PAN NF), was developed by depositing composite layers of α-TiO₂ and cone-shaped titanate (H₂Ti₅O₁₁·3H₂O) successively. The α-TiO₂ coated on f-PAN NF as a seed accelerated the nucleation of titanate. Cone-shaped titanate deposited on α-TiO₂@f-PAN NF tightly at 35 °C with the assistance of cyanuric acid via Ostwald ripening. Due to the uniform distribution of cone-shaped titanate, the photocatalytic performance of hybrid f-PAN NF was remarkable under LED light irradiation and yielded additional photocatalytic applications as well. In addition, the composite photocatalyst exhibited better reusability and retrievability because of the special design involving a bonding between the nanofibers and layers.