A facile electrospinning and direct annealing method for the fabrication of multi-porous ZnFe2O4 nanotubes with enhanced photocatalytic activity

Abstract The multi-porous ZnFe 2 O 4 (ZFO) nanotubes are fabricated by the direct annealing process of ZFO precursor nanofibers, which is prepared by a facile electrospinning method. The crystal structure, composition, morphology, magnetic property, specific surface area and pore size distribution of multi-porous ZFO nanotubes are systematically characterized. The results indicated the multi-porous ZFO nanotubes with high purity phase possess obvious multi-porous and tubular microstructure, the mean inner diameter, specific surface area and pore volume are about 150 nm, 57.42 m 2 g −1 and 0.16 cm 3 g −1 , respectively. Moreover, the multi-porous ZFO nanotubes exhibit a better photocatalytic activity than that of ZFO nanoparticles for photocatalytic degradation of RhB solution.