Novel Synthesis of Plasmonic Ag/AgCl@TiO2 Continues Fibers with Enhanced Broadband Photocatalytic Performance

Nan Bao,Xinde Hu,Xiyue Zheng,Xinhan Miao,Xiuyan Jie,Qingzhe Zhang

doi:10.3390/catal7040117

Nan Bao, Xinde Hu + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/catal7040117

Copy DOI

Abstract

The plasmonic Ag/AgCl@TiO2 fiber (S-CTF) photocatalyst was synthesized by a two-step approach, including the sol-gel and force spinning method for the preparation of TiO2 fibers (TF), and the impregnation-precipitation-photoreduction strategy for the deposition of Ag/AgCl onto the fibers. NaOH aqueous solution was utilized to hydrolyze TiCl4, to synthesize TF and remove the byproduct HCl, and the produced NaCl was recycled for the formation and deposition of Ag/AgCl. The surface morphology, specific surface area, textural properties, crystal structure, elemental compositions and optical absorption of S-CTF were characterized by a series of instruments. These results revealed that the AgCl and Ag0 species were deposited onto TF successfully, and the obtained S-CTF showed improved visible light absorption due to the surface plasmon resonance of Ag0. In the photocatalytic degradation of X-3B, S-CTF exhibited significantly enhanced activities under separate visible or UV light irradiation, in comparison to TF.

Highlights

As a potential technology, photocatalytic oxidation is widely applied in water treatment [1,2]and energy conversion area [3,4]
Ag0 nanoparticles-modified TiO2 exhibits excellent activity under visible light resulting from the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) [15,16], which is induced by the nano-size and morphology of
Local enlarged images of TiO2 fibers (TF), CTF and S-CTF are shown in Figure 1b,d,f, in which the porous structure that formed by the agglomeration of TiO2 nanoparticles can be observed

Summary

Introduction

Photocatalytic oxidation is widely applied in water treatment [1,2]and energy conversion area [3,4]. Ag0 nanoparticles-modified TiO2 exhibits excellent activity under visible light resulting from the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) [15,16], which is induced by the nano-size and morphology of Ag0 [17,18]. Previous research has mainly focused on the fabrication of nano-sized Ag/AgCl/TiO2 catalysts, such as nanoparticles [21,22], nanospheres [23], nanoarrays [20,24] and nanofibers [25]. These nano-sized catalysts are difficult to separate directly

Methods

Results

Conclusion