Fabrication of Au functionalized TiO2 nanofibers for photocatalytic application

摘要

Pristine titanium dioxide (TiO2) and gold (Au)-doped TiO2 (TiO2-Au) composite nanofibers (NFs) with different Au contents were fabricated by electrospinning. The thermal behavior of the as-spun composite precursor NFs were analyzed and characterized. Photocatalytic reactions were performed with methyl blue (MB) aqueous solution under UV-Vis and different irradiation wavelengths (including 360nm, 528nm, and 360nm and 528nm together). As a result, the morphology and the structure of TiO2-Au composite NFs were significantly influenced by calcination temperature, leading to the controllable phase ratio of anatase and rutile in TiO2. TiO2-Au composite NFs, with an average diameter of 171nm containing Au crystals of about 10nm, exhibited enhanced photocatalytic efficiency toward the MB, compared to that of commercial P25 (a multiphase TiO2 98% anatase and 2% rutile). The corresponding degradation level reached 95% after 10min. When irradiated with light having different wavelengths, the TiO2-Au composite NFs catalyst had the best performance under 360nm and 528nm together, indicating that Au NPs functionalized TiO2 NFs can enhance the photocatalysis from UV range to visible range. The mechanism of photocatalytic reactions under different irradiations is discussed in the present paper.