The Synthesis and Photocatalytic Performance of Peapod-Like One Dimensional Nanocomposites Composed of Au Nanoparticles and TiO2 Nanofibers.

Abstract

Recently, material scientists have paid a lot of attention on the synthesis of one dimensional peapod-like nanostructures composed of metal nanoparticles and inorganic nanofibers due to their superior properties. In this work, we realized the synthesis of Au-TiO2 nanopeapods by using Au-bacteria cellulose nanofibers as templates in aqueous solution through a simple sol-gel method. Reaction conditions such as the Au contents in the gold-bacteria cellulose nanofibers, the reaction times and the calcination temperatures were investigated in detail for the synthesis of nanopeapods of Au-TiO2. The photocatalytic degradation tests show that the presence of a small amount of Au nanoparticles can improve the photocatalytic performance of Au-TiO2 nanocomposites compared with pure TiO2 nanofibers. The strategy to synthesize peapodlike Au-TiO2 nanocomposites by using biotemplates may shed light for the synthesis of other peapod-like nanostructures.