Preparation and characterization of doped TiO2 nanofibers by coaxial electrospining combined with sol–gel process

•N, Fe, and W doped TiO2 nanofibers have been fabricated by coaxial electrospining.•The dopant has obvious influences on the surface topographies and crystal structures.•Fe doping can make remarkable topography changes and easy formation of rutile TiO2.•The maximum doping amount of W in TiO2 nanofibers is less than 10% under 500 °C.

N, Fe, and W doped TiO2 nanofibers were fabricated by coaxial electrospining and directly annealing polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)/Tetrabutyl titanate (TBT) composite nanofibers. The crystal structure, morphology, and surface composition of the doped TiO2 nanofibers were investigated by the X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) respectively. The results show that the dopants have different influence on the surface topographies, the crystal structures and the transformation of anatase to rutile of TiO2 nanofibers. Fe dopant promotes bigger influence on topographies, phase transformation and crystallite growth of TiO2 nanofibers than that of either N or W dopant.

Graphical abstractThe surface of the precursor of Fe/TiO2 nanofibers are smoother than that of Fe /TiO2 nanofibers. After calcined at 500 °C, the tubers on the surface of the nanofibers become more obvious, and which also provides a direct proof for the dopant of Fe element.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide