Electrospun heterojunction nanofibrous membranes for photoinduced enhancement of fine particulate matter capture in harsh environment

Abstract

Particulate matter (PM) pollution has posed a severe threat to the environment and human health. Especially for submicron-level fine particulate PM0.3, it is still difficult to achieve high-efficiency filtration. Herein, we loaded TiO2/g-C3N4 (TCN) heterojunction photocatalyst on polystyrene/polyacrylonitrile (PS/PAN) multiscale nanofiber membranes by a simple one-step blending electrospinning technique. Due to the strong long-range electrostatic force of the built-in electric field, the composite membrane has a remarkably enhanced filtration effect under light. Even under harsh conditions with a high PM0.3 concentration of more than 1,800,000 m−3 and a high flow rate of 25 L/min, it still has a high filtration efficiency of greater than 98.5%, an increase of about 20% compared with dark conditions, and the pressure drop is only low to 94 Pa. More importantly, the electrostatic field can be regenerated with light, and this preparation strategy can be effectively extended to other photocatalyst heterojunctions.