Electrospinning Of ZnO Inorganic Nanofibers And Their Photo-catalytic Property

Semiconductor nanomaterials have high surface areas and unique properties, thusthey have attracted a widely attention and become the research hotpot to modern people.Especially, in the aspect of environmental protection and treatment of pollution, thevalue and application of semiconductor materials can not be ignored, mainly due to itsability in photocatalytic degradation of organic pollutants. So semiconductornanomaterials have a wide application prospect.In this work, Zn(Ac)2/PVP composite fibers and Zn(Ac)2/TBOT/PVP compositefibers were prepared by electrospinning technique. And then pure inorganic ZnOnanofibers and ZnO-TiO2inorganic composite nanofibers were obtained after thecalcination of the composite fibers at600℃for2.5h.The Zn(Ac)2/PVP compositefibers were calcined at different temperatures, its crystalline structure after calcinationwas examined by X-ray diffraction (XRD).The characteristic crystalline peak of ZnOenhanced with the increase of the calcinating temperature. The effects of the parametersduring the spinning process on Zn(Ac)2/PVP composite fibers were investigated.Uniform in diameters and continuous nanofibers without liquid beads could be obtainedwith the polymer concentration of15%, the spinning voltage of12kV, the receivingdistance of20cm and the rate of sample propulsion of1.5uL/min.In order to test the photocatalytic properties of ZnO nanofibers and ZnO-TiO2composite nanofibers, they were used to degrade Rhodamine B with a certain initialconcentration under the irradiation of ultraviolet light.Timing sampling and theabsorbance of Rhodamine B at the maximum absorption wavelength of554nm wastested by UV-vis, and then calculating the degradation rate during a certain period oftime. The degradation rate of ZnO nanofibers in Rhodamine B was92.74%after4h.ZnO-TiO2composite nanofibers exhibited higher photocatalytic activity than thepure ZnO nanofibers.As the molar ratio of ZnO and TiO2of4:1, the degradation rate ofZnO-TiO2nanofibers in Rhodamine B could reach to94.5%in3.75h. The amount ofZnO nanofibers adsorption on Rhodamine B were larger than ZnO nanoparticles.And inthe different molar ratio of ZnO-TiO2composite fibers which were prepared, thephotocatalytic activity of the inorganic composite nanofibers enhanced with the increaseof the amout of TiO2.