Daylight photocatalysis performance of biomorphic CeO2 hollow fibers prepared with lens cleaning paper as biotemplate

Hierarchical, biomorphic CeO2 hollow fibers with mesoporous tube walls have been fabricated using lens cleaning paper as biotemplates. After sintered at 550 °C in air, the cellulosic fibers of paper were converted into micro-tubes composing of CeO2 crystallites with grain size about 8 nm. The photocatalytic activity of the CeO2 fibers was evaluated by photodegradation efficiency of methylene blue in aqueous solution under daylight irradiation. The characterized results show that the CeO2 fibers faithfully replicated micro-fibrous structure derived from original template and possessed dramatic enhanced photocatalytic activity compared with bulk CeO2. This simple biotemplate method provides a cost-effective and eco-friendly route to obtain high performance photocatalysts.

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► A novel, simple and eco-friendly approach for hierarchical, biomorphic CeO2 hollow fibers with mesoporous tube walls is presented by using paper as template.
► The biomorphic CeO2 fibers was composed of nanosheets with bimodal pore-size mesoporous distribution and exhibited high light-harvesting under sunlight irradiation.
► The CeO2 microfibers biomimicking the natural plant structures have promising application for photodegradation of organic pollutants in water.