Microstructure and photocatalytic activity of electrospun carbon nanofibers decorated by TiO 2 nanoparticles from hydrothermal reaction/blended spinning

Abstract Recently, carbon nanofibers@TiO 2 (CNFs@TiO 2 ) composites as photocatalysts for dye degradation have attracted intense attention. However, only few contributions had been made to investigate systematically the differences between the various preparation approaches and the influence of thermal treatment on the photocatalytic activity. In this work, the electrospun CNFs@TiO 2 composites which were prepared by hydrothermal reaction and blended spinning, respectively, have been fabricated via stabilization in air at 280 °C and then carbonization in N 2 at heat treatment temperature between 500 and 1100 °C. The composites which were prepared by hydrothermal reaction and blended spinning showed the outstanding photocatalytic activity at 900 °C and 1100 °C, respectively. And the photocatalytic activity of composites prepared by hydrothermal reaction was higher than that prepared by blended spinning, but reversibility of the composites showed a reverse trend. These results indicated that the effect of heat treatment temperature on the photocatalytic activity depended on the synergistic effect among the adsorptive property of CNFs, TiO 2 loading amount and anatase phase content in composites. Hence, combining the merits of hydrothermal reaction and blended spinning, a novel method for preparing CNFs@TiO 2 composites with high TiO 2 loading amount and strong interfacial interaction could be envisioned.