Fabrication of low-cost, self-floating, and recyclable Janus nanofibrous membrane by centrifugal spinning for photodegradation of dyes

Abstract

Photocatalytic degradation of organic dyes is an efficient and environmentally friendly technology. To address the challenges of difficult recovery and low reuse of powder catalysts, this study combined the side-by-side centrifugal spinning technique with the nanoparticle co-loading method to prepare heterogeneous structured photocatalytic Janus nanofibrous membranes. Furthermore, the PAN-ZnO//PVDF-TiO2 fibrous membrane exhibited optimal photocatalytic performance and the degradation efficiency of Rhodamine B dye was 76.40%, which was 3.84% and 9.46% higher than that of PAN-ZnO//PVDF and PAN//PVDF-TiO2 with single-sided catalyst loading, respectively. Moreover, even after undergoing five cycles, the photocatalytic degradation rate of dyes by Janus fibrous membrane remained as high as 71.13%. This remarkable and sustained photocatalytic performance is attributed to the stable construction of the Janus fibers and the heterogeneous structure formed between the catalyst components, which successfully facilitates close interfacial contact and improves the separation of photogenerated electron-hole pairs, resulting in enhanced photocatalytic performance. The fabrication process utilized in this study introduces a novel strategy for treating dye pollutants using photocatalytic fiber materials.