BiOI nanosheets decorated TiO2 nanofiber: Tailoring water purification performance of photocatalyst in structural and photo-responsivity aspects

Microscopic structure and photo-responsive characters are two important facets that dominate the synthetic performance of photocatalysts in environment remediation. In the present investigation, we report the simultaneous tailoring of these two facets toward improving the water purification performance of TiO2 based photocatalyst. Electrospinning-derived TiO2 nanofibers were decorated with the visible-light responsive BiOI nanosheets via a simple hydrothermal reaction approach, constructing heterostructured composite fibers. The obtained hierarchical TiO2@BiOI fibers demonstrated improved reactivity toward decomposition of Rhodamine B in the visible-light range over the pristine TiO2 nanofibers, meanwhile possessed high recycling convenience. The mechanism for advancement of the photocatalytic reactivity of the TiO2@BiOI fibers was elucidated by analyzing the results of photoluminescence and transient photocurrent response.