Influences of Silver-Doping on the Crystal Structure, Morphology and Photocatalytic Activity of TiO&amp;lt;sub&amp;gt;2&amp;lt;/sub&amp;gt; Nanofibers

Nasser A M Barakat,Muzafar A Kanjwal,Salem S Al-Deyab,Ioannis S Chronakis

doi:10.4236/msa.2011.29160

Influences of Silver-Doping on the Crystal Structure, Morphology and Photocatalytic Activity of TiO&lt;sub&gt;2&lt;/sub&gt; Nanofibers

Nasser A M Barakat, Muzafar A Kanjwal + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4236/msa.2011.29160

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Abstract

Doping of titanium dioxide nanofibers by silver nanoparticles revealed distinct improvement in the photocatalytic activity; however other influences have not been investigated. In this work, effect of sliver-doping on the crystal structure, the nanofibrous morphology as well as the photocatalytic activity of titanium oxide nanofibers has been studied. Silver-doped TiO2 nanofibers having different silver contents were prepared by calcination of electrospun nanofiber mats consisting of silver nitrate, titanium isopropoxide and poly(vinyl acetate) at 600℃. The results affirmed formation of silver-doped TiO2 nanofibers composed of anatase and rutile when the silver nitrate content in the original electrospun solution was more than 3 wt%. The rutile phase content was directly proportional with the AgNO3 concentration in the electrospun solution. Negative impact of the silver-doping on the nanofibrous morphology was observed as increase the silver content caused to decrease the aspect ratio, i.e. producing nanorods rather nanofibers. However, silver-doping leads to modify the surface roughness. Study of the photocatalytic degradation of methylene blue dye clarified that increase the silver content strongly enhances the dye oxidation process.

Highlights

Enormous efforts have been devoted to the research of TiO2 material, which has led to many promising applications in areas ranging from photovoltaics and photocatalysis to photo-/electrochromics and sensors [1,2,3,4,5]
Silver-doped TiO2 nanofibers having different silver contents were prepared by calcination of electrospun nanofiber mats consisting of silver nitrate, titanium isopropoxide and poly(vinyl acetate) at 600 ̊C
Calcination of electrospun nanofiber mats composed of silver nitrate, titanium isopropxide and poly(vinyl acetate) in air at 600 ̊C leads to produce silver-doped TiO2 nanofibers having both of antase and rutile phases if the silver nitrate content is more than 3 wt%

Summary

Introduction

Enormous efforts have been devoted to the research of TiO2 material, which has led to many promising applications in areas ranging from photovoltaics and photocatalysis to photo-/electrochromics and sensors [1,2,3,4,5]. Metal-doping strategy has been invoked to improve the physical and chemical properties of TiO2 nanoparticles/nanofibers [12,13,14]. Metal-doping may have an influence on the titania crystal structure leading to distinct improving in the application fields [13,17]. We study effect of the silver-doping on the crystal structure, the morphology and the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 nanofibers. Silver-doped TiO2 nanofibers were prepared by calcination of electrospun mats consisting of silver nitrate, tita-. Influences of Silver-Doping on the Crystal Structure, Morphology and Photocatalytic Activity of TiO2 Nanofibers 1189 nium isopropoxide and poly(vinyl acetate) at 600 ̊C. Physiochemical characterizations indicated that the silver content does have distinct influences on the morphology, crystal structure and photocatalytic activity of the TiO2 nanofibers

Materials

Electrospinning Set-up

Characterization

Results and Discussion

Conclusions