Fabrication of Hierarchical V2O5 Nanorods on TiO2 Nanofibers and Their Enhanced Photocatalytic Activity under Visible Light. Issue 15 (28th May 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ghosh, Monoj; Liu, Jiawei; Chuang, Steven S. C.; Jana, Sadhan C.
• Is Part Of: ChemCatChem. Volume 10:Issue 15(2018)
• Page Start: 3305
• Page End: 3318
• Publication Date: 2018-05-28
• Subjects: photochemistry -- mesoporous materials -- nanostructures -- oxidation -- vanadium; Catalysis -- Periodicals; 541.39505
• DOI: 10.1002/cctc.201800172
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1867-3880

Abstract

Abstract: We report photocatalytic activities of a set of mesoporous, hierarchical "nanorods‐on‐nanofiber" heterostructures produced from the organization of vanadium pentoxide (V2 O5 ) nanorods on titanium dioxide (TiO2 ) nanofibers fabricated using gas jet fiber (GJF) spinning process. The precursor nanofibers spun from solutions of poly(vinylpyrrolidone), titanium tetraisopropoxide, and vanadium oxytriisopropoxide are calcined at 500–600 °C in air to yield the above hierarchical nanostructures. The calcination temperature and the composition of the spinning solutions are used as factors to obtain different sizes of the nanorods, nanofibers, and the crystallites. Photocatalytic oxidation of gas‐phase ethanol on the heterostructures under visible light at room temperature is studied. The materials calcined at 500 °C show oxidation of ethanol into carbon dioxide and water with about three orders of magnitude higher rate than single‐component V2 O5 nanofibers and reference material V2 O5 powder. The higher photocatalytic activity is attributed to the slowdown of the electron–hole charge recombination phenomena in the heterostructures as inferred from photoluminescence study. The heterostructure V2 O5 –TiO2 photocatalyst can be easily regenerated without sacrificing any photocatalytic performance. Abstract : With nanoantennas : A mesoporous hierarchical V2 O5 –TiO2 "nanorods‐on‐nanofiber" morphology was achieved by combining wet precursor chemistry and needle‐tip gas jet fiber spinning followed by calcination. The unique heterostructure morphology promotes photogenerated electron–hole separation and accelerates the photocatalytic oxidation of ethanol.