Mesoporous ZnFe2O4@TiO2 nanofibers fabricated via electrospinning and PECVD for enhancement of photocatalytic properties

3^rd International Conference and Expo on Ceramics and Composite Materials

June 26-27, 2017 Madrid, Spain

Amr A Nada, Stephanie Roualdes and Mikhael Bechelany

Universit�© Montpellier 2, France
Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute, Egypt

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Material Sci Eng

Abstract :

The development of the dye industries was leading to increase in water contamination. This contamination supplies a serious threat to human. Therefore, many strategies have been developed to remove the organic dye from wastewater such as chemical flocculation, adsorption, and ion exchange. However, the traditional remediation of dye wastewater has many side effects, including the secondary pollution and long processing cycle. Recently, several investigations focused on the photocatalytic technology which is useful for degradation of organic dye into environmental friendly compounds (CO2 and water) using semiconductor materials such as TiO2. TiO2 has attracted attention as a photocatalyst due to its relatively low cost, high stability and low toxicity. However, the high recombination rate between the electron-hole of TiO2 limits the efficiency of the photocatalytic reaction. In addition, TiO2 has a wide band gap (3.2 eV) and it can only be excited by UV light. In order to shift the absorption edge of TiO2 to the visible range, ZnFe2O4@ TiO2 nanofibers were fabricated. These composite nanofibers were elaborated by combining the two techniques: Electrospinning and plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD). The nanofibers morphology and performance were optimized using different zinc/iron ratios. Their morphological, structural, and optical properties were analysed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), BET surface area, Raman spectroscopy and UVVisible spectrophotometry. The photocatalytic activity has been investigated by degradation of methylene blue (MB) under visible light. The results indicated that the combination of spinel structure with titanium dioxide improved the photodegradation efficiency up to 98%. Deposition of TiO2 via PECVD on zinc ferrite surfaces enhanced the absorption in the visible region and improved the electron-hole separation.

Biography :

Email: chem_amr@yahoo.com