Enhanced effect of adsorption and photocatalytics by TiO₂ nanoparticles embedded porous PVDF nanofiber scaffolds

Abstract: By electrospinning and the following electrospraying, porous polyvinylidene fluoride nanofiber scaffolds with the embedded titanium dioxide (TiO₂) nanoparticles were fabricated to improve the adsorption and photocatalytic performance. Adsorption experiments to MB showed the best adsorption capacity of the scaffolds with the value of 46.87 mg/g. The photocatalytic degradation performance of the composite nanofibers was directly proportional to the embedded amounts of the nanoparticles. Moreover, the introduction of the porous and the embedding of the photocatalytic nanoparticles contributed the synergetic effects by improving the adsorption capacity to 85.70 mg/g within relative short period of time, and so the photocatalytic efficiency of TiO₂ was enhanced and the energy requirement of photocatalysis was reduced to some extent. Through fourth cycles of the adsorption and the photocatalytic experiments, the nanofibers showed relative excellent recycling performances (> 89.5%). Thus, the composite nanofibers would be the potential effective and stable ones to remove pollutants from wastewater or other circumstances. Graphic abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]